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66th Congress "I qt?-w Ann? ( Document 

1st Session f bfcJNAiJi ^ No. 121 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH 



LETTER OF 
ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED POWERS 

TRANSMITTING TO THE 

AUSTRIAN DELEGATION THE TREATY OF PEACE 
WITH AUSTRIA, TOGETHER WITH THE REPLY OF 
THE ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED POWERS TO THE 
AUSTRIAN NOTE OF JULY 20, 1919, REQUESTING 
CERTAIN MODIFICATIONS OF THE TERMS 







PRESENTED BY MR. LODGE 

SEPTEMBER 15, 1919. — Ordered to be printed 



WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1919 



0. 
OCT 



or 



2 @ 1919 



t«n«r 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 



Letter of Transmittal to the President of the Austrian 
Delegation of the Reply of the Allied and Associated 
Powers. 

Peace Conference. 
The President. 
To His Excellency Mr. Renner, 

President of the Austrian Delegation at Saint-Germain-eTb-Layer. 

Paris, the 2nd September, 191*). 
Mr. President: 

1. The Allied and Associated Powers have given the greatest care 
to the examination of the observations formulated by the Austrian 
Delegation in regard to the draft of the Treaty of Peace. The objec- 
tions presented to this draft in the reply of the Austrian Delegation 
are based on the fact that, by reason of the dissolution of the Austro- 
Hungarian Monarchy, Austria ought not to be treated in any respect 
as an enemy State and that one ought consequently not to make her 
bear in any special manner the burden of the reparations which 
would certainly have been imposed upon the Austro-Hungarian 
Monarchy if she had Dot ceased to exist. 

The observations reveal a fundamentally erroneous conception of 
the responsibilities of the Austrian people. The Allied and Associ- 
ated Powers shall therefore believe it necessary to indicate as briefly 
as possible the principles which they consider ought to be applied in 
the settlement, so far as Austria is concerned, of the war, which has 
just come to an end. 

The Austrian people share in a large measure with their neighbor 
the Hungarian people's responsibility for the ills which Europe has 
suffered in the course of the last five years. The war was precipitated 
by the ultimatum which the government of Vienna sent to Serbia 
exacting acceptance within a delay of 48 hours of a list of exactions 
which amounted to suppression of the independence of a sovereign 
neighbor state. The royal government of Serbia accepted within the 
prescribed delay all these exactions, with the exception of those 
which implied virtually renunciation of its independence. Never- 
theless, the Austro-Hungarian government rejected all offers of dis- 
cussion and all proposals of conciliation on the basis of that reply, and 
opened at once hostilities against Serbia, entering thus deliberately 
upon the course which led straight to the world war. 

It is now evident that this ultimatum was but a hypocritical pre- 
text to begin a war which the old autocratic government of Vienna, 
in close accord with the Rulers of Germany, had prepared long ago, 
and for which it judged the moment had arrived. The presence of 
Austrian cannon at the sieges of Liege and Xamur is a proof more, 
if one were needed, of the close association of the government of 
Vienna with the government of Berlin in the complot against public 
law and the liberty of Europe. 



4 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

The Austrian Delegation seems to judge that the responsibility for 
these acts is incumbent solely upon the Hapsburg dynasty and its 
satellites. To believe them, the Austrian people, by reason of the 
collapse of that monarchy under the blows of the victorious allies, 
might escape the responsibility for the acts committed by a Govern- 
ment which was its own and had its seat in its capital. If the Aus- 
trian people had during the years which preceded the war made 
efforts to repress the spirit of militarism and of domination which had 
animated the government of the monarchy, if it had raised an effective 
protest against the war, if they had refused to aid and support its 
rulers in the design to pursue it, one might accord some attention to 
this defense at the present day. But the war was acclaimed from the 
moment of its declaration at Vienna, the Austrian people have been 
from beginning to end its ardent partisan, it has done nothing to 
separate itself from the politics of its government and of its allies 
until their defeat on the field of battle, proof sufficient that con- 
formably to the sacred rules of justice Austria should be held to 
assume its entire share of responsibility for the crime which has 
unchained upon the world such a calamity. 

But there is more: the Allied and Associated Powers feel obliged 
to point out that the polity of the old Hapsburgs had become in its 
essence a polity destined to maintain the supremacy of the German 
and Magyar peoples over the majority of the inhabitants of the 
Austro-Himgarian Monarchy. This ancient and exhausted autoc- 
racy, with its militarist traditions, maintained itself, thanks to the 
vigorous support of the inhabitants of Austria and Hungary, to 
whom it assured political economic domination over their compa- 
triots. It is this system of domination and oppression, setting the 
races against one another, and to which the Austrian people has 
given its constant support, that has been one of the most profound 
causes of the war. It has produced on the borders of Austria-Hungary 
those irredentist movements, which have fostered in Europe ferments 
of agitation; it has produced that state of progressive dependence 
on the part of Austria-Hungary on German}^, the consequence of 
which was the subordination of Austria-Hungarian politics to the 
pangermanist plans of domination ; it has culminated at last in a situa- 
tion in which the chiefs of the monarchy could see no other means of 
preserving their own power than by attacking deliberately the lib- 
erty of a small independent state, which barred the road to Constan- 
tinople and the Orient, and which maintained spiritedly a vision of 
liberty amidst its oppressed brethren. 

Therefore, in the opinion of the Allied and Associated Powers, it is 
impossible to admit the defense of the Austrian Delegation, to-wit, 
that the Austrian people does not share the responsibilitj? of the gov- 
ernment which provoked the war, and that it ought to escape the 
dut}^ of reparation, to the extreme limit of its faculties, to those to 
whom, with the government it supported, it has brought such grave 
injury. The principles upon which the draft of the Treaty has been 
based must therefore hold fast. The Austrian people is, and remains 
until the signing of the peace, an enemy people. Peace signed, 
Austria will become a state with whom the Allied and Associated 
Powers can entertain friendty relations. 

2. The Austrian Delegation has also protested against the disposi- 
tions of the Treaty dealing with the relations of Austria with the new 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 5 

states constituted upon the territories of the former monarchy. The 
Allied and Associated Powers see themselves under the obligation to 
note that the weakness from which Austria is going to suffer will not 
be the consequence of the stipulations of the treaty; it will be in con- 
sequence rather of the polity of supremacy which its people has pur- 
sued in the past. 

If the polity of Austria-Hungary had been a polity of generosity 
and justice towards all its subjects, the states of the upper Danube 
might have preserved economic and political unity and amicable 
relations. In fact the polity of supremacy has been the cause of 
one of the most cruel tragedies of the late war: one has seen millions 
of men belonging to the peoples subject to Austria-Hungary forced, 
under penalty of death, to fight against their will in the ranks of an 
army which served at the same time to perpetuate their own servi- 
tude, and to accomplish the destruction of the liberty of Europe. 
Among these populations many have protested against the war, and 
for having protested, they have suffered the confiscation of their 
goods, imprisonment, or death; many others, prisoners or fugitives, 
have joined the armies of the allies and have played their role in the 
war of liberation. 

Now they are all, without exception, and justly, resolved to con- 
stitute themselves into independent states. They do not want to 
trust themselves to Vienna. The polity of supremacy has produced 
its inevitable result: dismemberment, and it is this dismemberment 
which is the origin of all the actual difficulties of Austria. Vienna 
had been made the economic and political centre of the empire; 
everything had been artificially concentrated there: the provinces 
were weakened, their railways were paralyzed in order that the capi- 
tal might prosper. The dislocation of Austria, in its disintegration 
of this economic network, until now centralized, could not fail to 
deal serious blows to the Austrian state and its capital, but the very 
dissolution of the monarchy with its consequences is the direct result 
of that sinister polity of supremacy of which the Austrian people 
bear the principal responsibility. 

3. The Allied and Associated Powers have, however, no desire to 
aggravate the unfortunate situation of Austria. Quite to the con- 
trary, they have a lively desire to do eveiy thing which is in their 
power to aid its people to accommodate themselves to the new situa- 
tion and to regain prosperity, on condition, to be sure, that it be at no 
time at the expense of the new states issued from the old empire. 

The collapse of the monarchy has given birth to many difficult 
problems in the relations between the new states which by the 
Treaty are its heirs. It has always been considered reasonable that 
the relations between the citizens of the new states should be regu- 
lated in certain respects differently from the relations between the 
citizens of Austria and those of the Allied and Associated Powers. 
But by reason of the observations presented by the Austrian Dele- 
gation the Allied and Associated Powers, while adhering to the gen- 
eral lines of the Treaty, have introduced considerable modifications 
in its economic stipulations. Property located in the territories 
ceded to the Allied Powers belonging to Austrian nationals will be 
turned over to the owners; such property will be exempt from any 
measures of liquidation or transfer taken since the armistice, and 
they are guaranteed similar exemption from any measure of seizure 



6 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

or liquidation for the future. Contracts between removed Austrians 
and persons who have acquired allied nationality by the Treaty 
remain in force without faculty of resilement. Measures are taken 
to assure to Austria supplies of coal from Czecho-Slovakia and 
Poland, which she can not do without, in exchange fQr certain raw 
materials. Pending questions concerning removed Austrians, which 
remain to be resolved between Austria and neighbor states, her heirs, 
will be settled by separate conventions, elaborated in conference in 
which Austria will be admitted on an equal footing with the other 
interested parties. The details of these concessions, and others still, 
will be found in the subjoined reply. 

Finally, the Reparations Commission will receive instructions to 
acquit itself of the functions with which it is entrusted in an emi- 
nently humanitarian spirit. It will take into account the vital 
interests of the collectivity, and will authorize every alleviation 
which it shall consider called for by the food situation of Austria. 

4. As to the territorial frontiers fixed for the Republic of Austria, 
the Allied and Associated Powers can not admit any essential modi- 
fication of the decisions which have been already communicated. 
These decisions have been made after months of profound studies; 
and it has not found a single argument in the remarks submitted by 
the Austrian Delegation that had not been examined by the Con- 
ference. The Allied and Associated Powers have taken note, how- 
ever, of the Austrian protest concerning the city of Radkersburg. 

In a general way, the Powers have endeavored to determine the 
boundaries of the states issuing from the old Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy with an equity bound to give central Europe a durable 
peace. Thus they have adopted for Czecho-Slovakia the historic 
frontiers of the crown of Bohemia; where these frontiers are in 
common with those of Austria, they have not deviated therefrom 
but in two casesof secondary importance where the economic in- 
terests of the new states appeared, and still appear, to prevail over 
the claims of the Austrian Republic. In the case of Jugo-Slavia 
the Allied and Associated Powers have followed so far as possible 
the recognized linguistic frontier. 

So far as concerns Hungary the Allied and Associated Powers have 
incorporated with Austria certain German-speaking regions com- 
prised heretofore within the Hungarian boundaries fixed as the}' 
now are, they will guarantee best the existence of all the peoples 
interested, the Austrians included, without exposing them to an- 
archy or murderous rivalries. 

v As to the Tyrol, the Allied and Associated Powers have been 
struck by the fact that during long years the Italian people have 
been exposed to a menace, intentionally directed against its very 
life. This menace resulted from the possession by Austria-Hungary 
of advanced military positions commanding the Italian plains. 
Under these conditions the best solution, in the opinion of the Allied 
and Associated Powers, was to grant to Italy the natural boundary 
of the Alps so long claimed by her. 

5. The Allied and Associated Powers desire also to remind the 
Austrian Delegation that the Treaty of peace contains dispositions 
having in view the protection of small collectivities specially such 
as the new Austria. It will henceforth no more be possible for 
powerful empires to threaten with impunity the political and eco- 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 7 

nomic life of their weaker neighbors. The clauses relating to ports 
waterways, and railways assure to Austria under international 
guarantees access to the sea by land and water. 

The clauses having regard to labor legislation will contribute to 
safeguard the rights of the working population and to ameliorate its 
conditions of existence. The treaties concerning minorities will safe--< 
guard the religious, political, and linguistic rights of minorities pass- 
ing under another sovereignty by virtue of the Treaty of peace. The 
League of Nations to which the Allied and Associated Powers hope 
the Republic of Austria may be admitted at an early date is not 
only the protectress of the rights and liberties of Austria; it will 
protect not merely the rights of all the signatories of the Treaty; it 
institutes at the same time the organism by grace of which all 
arrangements may be made to intervene, in calm and legality, which 
events or new circumstances may render necessary in course of the 
settlement of the peace. These characteristics of the proposed set- 
tlement should not be forgotten. 

6. In short, the Allied and Associated Powers desire to make it 
clearly understood that the modifications which they have now 
made in the draft of the Treaty are definitive. They mean to 
declare, moreover, that if they have not replied specifically to all 
the points in the reply of the Austrian Delegation it is not because 
they have not carefully examined them; neither does the absence 
of a reply signify that the claims formulated were accepted or 
approved. No more should the present reply be considered an 
authorized interpretation of the Treaty. The text which we send to 
you to-day is a continuation of that of the 20 July last, which already 
bore considerable changes with reference to that of the original text 
of the 2 June, must be accepted or rejected as the case may be. 

Consequently the Allied and Associated Powers expect of the 
Austrian Delegation within five days, counting from the date of the 
present communication, a declaration making known that it is ready 
to sign the Treaty as it stands. 

As far as this declaration is received by the Allied and Associated 
Powers, arrangements will be made at once for the immediate signing 
of the Peace at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. 

In default of such declaration within the time specified above, 
the armistice concluded November 3, 1918, shall be considered at 
an end and the Allied and Associated Powers shall take all measures 
judged necessary to impose their conditions. 

Please accept, Mr. President, the assurance of my high consid- 
eration. 

Postscript. — In execution of article 179 of the Conditions of 
Peace with Austria, the Reparations Commission may delegate such 
powers as it may judge opportune to the Section constituted to deal 
with special questions arising from the application of the Treaty. 

Pursuant: 

The Commission will receive instructions that this Special Section 
meet normally at Vienna, and that at the shortest delay after the 
putting in force of the Treaty. 

This Section shall act as representative of the Reparations Com- 
mission in all matters which concern the resources and capacities of 



8 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

Austria; it shall receive all informations of which it may be in need 
and which are provided for by article 182 of the Conditions of Peace. 

It shall be charged " to hear all arguments and testimony presented 
by Austria on all questions touching its capacity of payment." 
(Annex II of Part VIII.) 

To facilitate the production of these documents and testimonies, 
Austria shall be represented before the Section by a Commissioner, 
who shall be called to the sessions of the Section every time the latter 
may consider it necessary, but who shall not have the right to vote. 

It sha^ll follow the financial arrangements entered upon between 
the governments concerned under the conditions fixed by article 
211, and designate arbitrators upon demand of the governments 
concerned. 

Reply of the Allied and Associated Powers to the Remarks 
of the Austrian Delegation upon the Peace Terms. 

[Translated from the French.] 
Part II.— FRONTIERS OF AUSTRIA. 

The Allied and Associated Powers, having been called upon to 
sanction the spontaneous disruption of the former Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy, have found that the breaking up of the secular bonds con- 
necting the different parts of that State had not been brought about 
everywhere in the same way. They have deemed that they could 
not insm*e for their work of reconstruction a better guarantee of 
justice and permanency than in heeding the lesson of events and in 
adhering in each case to the principle which, violated by the Union, 
had rendered the separation necessary. 

Such is the spirit in which they have, since the convening of the 
Conference, studied the future frontiers of the Republic of Austria, 
with due regard to the historical, geographical, ethnical, and political 
aspects of the question. The}' have examined most carefully the 
remarks which the Austrian Delegation has presented on the frontiers 
that were made known to it on June 2nd, and have given them con- 
sideration in the final peace terms presented on July 20th. They 
believe consequently that the counter proposals contained in the 
memorandum of August 6th have not brought any new argument to 
bear in the case, nor have they justified in any wise the Powers in 
changing, save on one point, the decisions which they had arrived at 
concerning the frontiers of the Republic of Austria as these were 
determined in the peace terms. 

I. FRONTIER BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND THE CZECHO-SLOVAK STATE. 

In the course of the last hundred years, the Czech nation had been 
gradually dispossessed of the rights that a long series of formal acts, 
imperial rescripts, and decisions of sovereign diets had granted them 
while its independence was restricted by a regime of subservience, 
its moral integrity had to resist the Germanizing process which had 
spread from the territories of the German race. 

The Czech nation, wronged and threatened, has appealed to the 
Allied and Associated Powers to restore to that nation all its rights 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 9 

in full. They have therefore thought proper to preserve as far as 
practical their historic frontiers to the old Czech provinces of the 
crown of Bohemia. They have deemed that the German speaking 
people living on the horders of these provinces ought to remain con- 
nected with the Czech peoples in order to cooperate with them in the 
development of the national unity in which history has associated 
them. The Allied and Associated Powers have deemed that this 
national unity would be best insured through an economic unity 
which the imperial and royal administration had failed to realize. 
They have endeavored, therefore, to insure to the Czecho-Slovak 
State a complete system of ways of communication. In doing so, 
they had to overstep slightly the historic frontier in two points; 
namely, in the region of the Thaya, in order to include in the Czecho- 
slovak territory the line Ludenburg-Feldsberg-Znain, necessary for 
the west to east communications of southern Moravia, and in the 
region of Gmiind, in order to effect in Bohemia the junction of two 
trunk lines which run almost wholly through the said province, 
namely, the line of Prag through Tabor, and that of Pilsen through 
Budweiss. 

II. FRONTIER BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have deemed it just to affect to 
Austria the districts of western Hungary inhabited by a German 
population and whose agricultural products form an important 
element of the food supply of Vienna and other centers. The line 
that they have established and communicated to the Austrian 
Delegation on the 20th of July, follows very nearly the ethnographic 
limits, notably in the region of the St. Gothard. However there 
remains outside of this (ethnographic) limit the neighborhood of 
Pressburg. In this case the Powers have been preoccupied with 
guaranteeing to the Czecho-Slovaks access to the sea. They have 
desired, consequently, that the great market of Moravia, Pressburg, 
should have its communication with the Adriatic assured through 
Hungarian as well as Austrian territory. 

They have, therefore, left in Hungarian territory the Cserna- 
Szentjanos-Hegyeshalem railroads and judged it impossible to cut 
it in order to validate the Austrian claim to the District of Weiselburg. 
Within the frontier so fixed, the ethnic character and the national 
sentiment of the populations indicate too positively their attachment 
to Austria for the Allied and Associated Powers to believe it neces- 
sary to have recourse to a plebiscite, or, in any case, to participate 
in the organization and the surveillance of this consultation if Austria 
should proceed to one. 

III. BOUNDARY BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND THE SERB-CROAT-SLOVENE 

STATE. 

The policy of assimilation pursued by the imperial and royal 
administration in regard to the Slavonic race, has been one of the 
causes which have prevented the formation of a moral unity at the 
heart of the old monarchy. But under the oppression of func- 
tionaries strangers to their race, deprived of schools teaching their 
language, overwhelmed by the immigration of state employees and 
laborers, the Slovenes have, however, kept intact their national 



10 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

aspirations. The Allied and Associated Powers have recognized 
the right of these Slav populations to partake the destinies of a Slav 
State. The application of this principle presents itself under different 
conditions in Stvria and in Carinthia. 



The Associated and Allied Powers have considered that the Mar- 
burg basin, in its geographical, ethnographical, and economic unity, 
ought to be united to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. 
They maintain that this natural region, indented to the west by the 
Balkan range, communicates as easily with the Slav countries of the 
South as with the Austrian countries and opens itself widely towards 
the East, by the valley of the Drave, which even to its confluence 
with the Danube never ceases to be within Scrb-Croat-Slovene 
territory. 

They recognize that certain cities, notably Marburg, are German 
in character. But they maintain that the Slovene element distinctly 
dominates in the rural population, where the action of the authorities 
succeeds only with difficulty in creating factitious majorities they 
consider that despite the efforts of the former Austrian administra- 
tion to deflect from Hungary the commercial current of these regions, 
the market of Marburg was formerly in close economic relations with 
Croatia. They consider that their relations will naturally become 
closer following a political reattachment to the Serb-Croat-Slovene 
State, while the relations with the North created by the attraction 
of the Austrian capital will be relaxed. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have, however, taken account 
of the Austrain protest concerning the city of Radkersburg, that the 
ethnographic and economic conditions appear to orient toward 
Austria rather than toward the Serb-Croat-Slovene State. 

They are convinced that their solution so amended responds at 
the same time to the sentiment and to the interest of the majority 
of the populations. 

CARINTHIA. 

The Allied and Associated Powers admit the geographical unity of 
the basin of Klagenfurt and recognize that this region closed at the 
South by the basin of the Karawanken has easy relations with the 
North. They distinguish on the other hand a very distant line of 
ethnic demarcation, constituted by the Gurk, the Glan, the Glanfurt, 
and the Worthersee, the Slovene element dominating at the East 
and at the South of this line, the German element to the West and 
to the North. In short, they decree that the ways of communication 
constructed in the interior of the basin by a centralized administra- 
tion converge near the market of Klagenfurt and that so far the 
economic orientation of this region has been directed toward the 
North. 

In these conditions they have decided to grant to the population 
all latitude for conforming and according their economic interests 
with their national aspirations and to decide if they will, or will 
not, maintain their regional unity, and in this case remain united to 
Austria, or join the Serb-Croat-Slovene State. 

Such is the idea that has controlled the decision to organize the 
plebiscite. The Powers have sought, in placing the entire basin 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 11 

under the control of their representatives to surround this consul- 
tation with all necessary guarantees for a free expression of the 
peoples will. 

They have, in view of the plebiscite, divided the basin, following 
the line of ethnic demarcation in two zones, each of these zones, 
which will be called to give a vote as a whole, comprises a nearly 
homogeneous population and will be able, if the separation becomes 
definitive to reconstitute its economic unity in close liaison with the 
State with which it decides to follow the destinies. The reasons 
which have led them to arrange for a delay between the two votes 
against which the Austrian Delegation protests, seem convincing. 
If the first zone declared for an attachment to Austria it would be 
useless to consult the second as geographic conditions would pro- 
hibit the choice of a different destiny. The Allied and Associated 
Powers recognize as well founded the observations of the Austrian 
delegation in regard to the water supply of Klagenfurt. They have 
inserted in the Treaty an article 310, guaranteeing to the city water 
necessary for drinking, and for the functioning of the factories by 
electricity. 

IV. BOUNDARY BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND ITALY. 

The Allied and Associated Powers consider that no modification 
should be made in the boundary line between Italy and Austria 
which has been presented to the Austrian Delegation in condition 
of the Peace terms. Also that it is shown by the very positive 
declarations made by the President of the Council of Ministers of 
Italy, to the Parliament of Rome, the Italian Government proposes 
to adopt a generous and liberal policy toward its new subjects of 
the German race, as concerns their language, their culture, and their 
economic interests. 

PART III.— POLITICAL CAUSES. 

SECTION I. ITALY. 

In the -'redaction'' which follows the observation presented by the 
Austrian Delegation, modifications are proposed to article 4Cf (46) 
and 44 (50) without any argument being presented to their support. 
It is out of the question to touch article 40 (46) . One could not impose 
upon the Italian government the obligation of paying for a palace that 
it has claimed b} r perfect right as property of the old republic of 
Venice. The transfer of this palace should have taken place when 
Venice was incorporated in the Kingdom of Italy. Particular cir- 
cumstances of an exclusively political character alone have prevented 
until now the carrying out of this claim. As to article 44 (50), the 
disposition of the last paragraph relative to Lake Raibl, has no other 
end than of guaranteeing to Italy the full enjojanent of the use of 
the waters of this lake to the exclusion of every contrary protection, 
either of Austria or of its nationals. 

In these conditions, the proposition of the Austrian Delegation, 
which is otherwise not justified, appears unfounded. 



12 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

SECTION V (i). PROTECTION OF THE MINORITIES. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have received the observations 
of Austria concerning Section 5 of Part III of the Peace terms con- 
taining articles for the protection of minorities. They' remark that 
the Austrian Delegation appears to be in accord with the Allied and 
Associated Powers in deeming that the stipulation of these guarantees 
in favor of race minorities, of language and of religion, will very much 
aid in establishing relations between the peoples of Europe. The 
Austrian commentary evidences a desire to cooperate in the solution 
of one of the most difficult and most complex problems of Europe. 
The amendments suggested by the Austrian Delegation concerning 
these clauses have been carefully examined by the Allied and Asso- 
ciated Powers. The observations bear especially upon the two 
clauses which have relation to the enforcement by the League of 
nations of the guarantees given to the minorities. The Austrian 
Delegation recognizes that this right for the League of nations 
constitutes a question of international interest and it is in accord 
with the Allied and Associated Powers in recognizing the necessity 
of conferring upon the League of nations the necessary power to 
safeguard the stipulated guarantees. The Austrian Delegation has 
criticized the wording of article 62 (79) and 60 (87) relating to the 
League of nations and has directed attention to some doubts which 
might arise in the application of these articles. The desires of the 
Austrian Delegation will be in a large measure satisfied if these clauses 
are conformed to the analogous clauses already introduced in the 
Treaty between the Principal Allies and Associates and Poland. It 
seems that this Delegation may also desire the duties imposed upon 
the Austrian State, in so far as possible, identical with those under- 
taken by the other states composing the old Austro-Hungarian 
empire. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have, therefore, modified these 
articles to make them agree with the clauses inserted in the Treaty 
with Poland. As revised, these clauses define more precisely the 
jurisdiction of the League of nations and the procedure in its exercise. 
The old wording has been criticized because it allowed the League of 
nations to intervene in a difference between the Austrian state and 
a particular [one of its members]. From the present Treaty, it will 
now clearly appear that the Council of the League of nations will only 
act upon the request of a state which is a member of the Council. 
The conferring of jurisdiction upon the Permanent Court of inter- 
national justice established under the League of nations underlies 
the juridical character of the differences which can be raised and 
fully responds to the desire of Austria of restraining the possibilities 
of political intervention in this case. Thus disappear apppearances 
of contradiction between the old article 87 which limited the protec- 
tion of the League of nations "to the clauses which have to do with 
racial, religious, and linguistic 'minorities' and the old article 79 
which conferred jurisdiction upon all the obligations contained in the 
present Section.' 1 

If difficulties ensued in the execution of these clauses their modifica- 
tion would be facilitated by a stipulation indicating that it can be 
effected with the assent of the majority of the Council of the League 
of nations and that the Allied and Associated Powers now do not 
refuse their assent to any modification of this nature. 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 13 

SECTION VI. NATIONALITIES. 

The Allied and Associated Powers do not refuse to give satisfaction 
in so far as possible to the observations by the Austrian Delegation 
upon the subject of nationalities. The dispositions relative to these 
questions are brought together in a special section; the Allied and 
Associated Powers, further remark that the words " Austrian citi- 
zens" in the Treaty designate the citizens of the Austrian State 
beginning when the Treaty is put into effect; the words "citizens of 
the old Austro-Hungarian monarchy before the Treaty goes into 
effect." The modifications made in the first text take account in the 
measure possible of those observations of the Austrian Delegation 
which have appeared justified, as regards the possible contracidtion 
between certain dispositions applied to the transferred territories. 
This is so that save certain clearly denned exceptions all having 
citizenship in a territory previously forming part of the territories 
of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, will acquire complete right, and 
to the exclusion of Austrian nationality, the nationality of the State 
exercising the condition under which persons will be able to use the 
right of option, are precisely stated. On the other hand the Austrian 
Delegation has signalized the possibility offered to Austrian subjects 
of avoiding legal obligation incumbent upon Austrian citizens. It 
is observed here that option is granted only on condition that the 
persons who make use of it transport their domicile out of Austrian 
territory. 

This is already a check to the attempts which some Austrians 
would make to continue benefiting by a sojourn in Austria without 
bearing the resultant burdens. Moreover, the Austrian Delegation 
itself recognized that the interested States will entertain demands of 
option only when they are based upon serious indications permitting 
of determining that the claimant is justified in claiming the nation- 
ality that he solicits. To consider as without value a demand based 
upon community of language or of origin is to contest all the essential 
principles upon which nationality is established. The new States 
have otherwise no interest in augmenting the number of those of their 
citizens who neither by race or by true sentiments belong to their 
nationality. In short, there is no cause to fear persons desirous of 
avoiding obligations resulting from the Treaty which affect alone the 
Austrian citizens, can escape them by option, for the dispositions of 
the Treaty in excluding from its burdens the Austrian citizens having 
acquired new nationality, have carefully and distinctly required that 
they must have acquired this nationality in ''full legality." The 
fears expressed by the Austrian Delegation regarding this rest upon 
a misunderstanding. The observation concerning article 90 (86) 
attribute to the Allied and Associated Powers reserves and intentions 
which they have not and could not have. It is also not very likely 
that the circumstances raised by the Austrian Delegation should be 
of a nature to exercise any influence whatever upon the determination 
of an individual to change or not to change his nationality; this could 
happen only in extremely rare cases. The wording of the article has 
been, however, modified to take account of these observations. 



14 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

SECTION VIII. 1 GENERAL DISPOSITIONS. 

It has appeared useful to consecrate by a special disposition the 
principles recognized by the Treaty concluded with Germany (article 
80), that the independence of Austria is inalienable; it could be other- 
wise only with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations. 
There have been equally inserted in Section VIII, articles 93 and 94, 
the dispositions regulating, in the most equitable manner, the trans- 
mission, or, according to the case, the communication of archives or 
other documents interesting the transferred territories. The Allied 
and Associated Powers have not believed it their duty to take account 
of the objections relative to article 91 (90), which otherwise contains 
in the 2nd line a necessary disposition for preventing in advance all 
obstacles eventual to the regulation of the juridical situation of the 
territories which have not been attributed to a determined State. 

PART IV.— AUSTRIAN INTERESTS IN COUNTRIES OTHER THAN 

EUROPEAN. 

The Allied and Associated Powers think there is no reason for modi- 
fying materially the provisions found in Part IV of the conditions of 
Peace relating to "Austrian Interests in countries outside Europe." 
Most of the counterproposals presented by the Austrian Delegation 
proceed from the principle that Austria can not be regarded as bound 
tor the entire former Austro-Hungarian monarchy. But the Allied 
and Associated Powers considered that Austria is one of the succeed- 
ing States of Austria-Hungary. They affirm, moreover, that Austria 
does not intend to refuse that heritage when it is of value to her in 
retaining her diplomatic and consular buildings in Siam (art. Ill 
(108)) and in China (art. 115 (112)), and that she does not hesitate to 
claim that heritage as a basis for her request to remain in possession 
of real property in Morocco (99 (96)) and in Egypt (art. 108 (105)) 
or to reserve for herself the possibility of obtaining her quota of the 
indemnity fixed in the final Protocol signed at Pekin on the 7th of 
September, 1901 (art. 113 (110)). 

The Allied and Associated Powers consider that Austria is bound 
by the treaties and obligations agreed to by the former Austro- 
Hungarian monarchy. They are obliged to ask her to formally re- 
nounce, as far as concerns her, the rights, titles, and privileges that 
have appertained to that State, and particularly those that came to 
her in consequence of the Act-general of Algeciras and in conse- 
quence of some Franco-German agreements relative to Morocco (art. 
96 (93)) of the regime of the capitulation in Egypt (art. 99 (102)), 
or of the provisions of the final Protocol of Pekin (art. 113). They 
cannot otherwise guarantee to the Austrian representatives in Mo- 
rocco (art. 98 (95)), in Egypt (art. 105 (102)), and in China (art. 114 
(111)) a treatment as favorable as that the citizens of the powers 
members of the League of Nations in general, under the jurisdic- 
tion of the Powers, will enjoy; for by so doing they would grant to 
Austria, before her admission to the League of Nations, the benefit of 
that admission. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have applied a common principle 
of international law in ordering that all property and proprietary 
rights that have belonged to the ancient Austro-Hungarian monarchy, 

i Old Section VII. 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 15 

a hostile State, in Morocco, in Egypt, in Siam, and in China should 
be ceded to the Government of the Maghzen (art. 98), to the Egyp- 
tian Government (art. Ill), to the Chinese Government (art. 113). 
They see no reason to extend to all non-European countries without 
exception the derogations which they have been able to consent to 
for exceptional reasons, either in European territory or in Siam or 
China. So far as concerns this last country, they deem that the 
lodgments of this detachment of the former Austro-Hungarian marine 
do not differ from the " barracks," the conditions of which are regu- 
lated by article 115, and cannot be classed as Diplomatic and Con- 
sular buildings, as desired by the Austrian Delegation. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have applied to the liquidation 
of rights of property and possession of the Austrian citizens in Mo- 
rocco (art. 96), in Egypt (art. 108), in Siam (art. Ill), and in China 
(art. 117 (116)) the general dispositions provided by Section IV of 
Part X of the Treaty. 

The Allied and Associated Powers would fail in the solidarity which 
they have desired to consecrate by a general treaty, if recognized in 
this Treaty the direct understandings that Austria asks to conclude 
with Siam and China. 

They deem that Austria is not justified in demanding the advan- 
tages that she. wished to assure to herself by these understandings. 

On the other hand, the internment of enemy citizens by the Allied 
and Associated Powers constitutes a measure of security that does 
not admit of a claim for indemnity against these Powers. On the 
other hand, the Allied and Associated Powers having decided that 
China would be definitely freed from obligations to Austria-Hungary, 
as well as to Germany, imposed by the final Protocol of September 7, 
1901, are not disposed to contemplate that China would be able to 
renew these obligations for the benefit of Austria. At the same time, 
the Allied and Associated Powers have taken account of the Austrian 
observations by making more precise the wording of articles 95, 111, 
and 115. 

PART V.— CLAUSES RELATING TO THE ARMY, NAVY, AND NAVIGA- 
TION OF THE AIR. 

After an examination of the Austrian counter-proposals the Allied 
and Associated Governments have made the following decisions with 
regard to the clauses that relate to the Army, Navy, and Navigation 
of the Air. 

CLAUSES THAT RELATE TO THE ARMY. 

1. The modification proposed to article 118 (115) would have for 
effect the postponing to an indefinite date the demobilization of 
Austrian military forces; an operation that, according to the decision 
of the Allied and Associated Powers, ought to be terminated in 
three months. 

TJcis modification can not he granted. 

2. The aim of the modifications proposed to articles 119 (116), 
125 (122), 126 (123) is the authorization of the Austrian State to 
establish a militia, for officers as well as for the troops, in which 
military instruction would be given to the total legal population and 
which would constitute, in this manner, the nucleus of an important 



16 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

military force, without ever being in a situation otherwise, to meet 
the obligations imposed in article 120 (117) of the Treaty of Peace. 

Whatever may be the value of the arguments of a financial order 
brought forward by the Austrian Delegation, the institution of a 
military regime depending upon obligatory service is absolutely 
contrary to the principle of reduction of armaments which the 
Allied and Associated Powers have held it necessary to impose upon 
their former enemies as the sole means of assuring in future the secu- 
rity of world peace. 

These modifications can not therefore be granted. 

3. The modification proposed to article 123 (120) would authorize 
the Austrian Government to increase, at will, the number of gens- 
darmes, customhouse officers, foresters, and policemen, at the same 
time observing strictly the prohibition forbidding them military 
instruction. 

This modification can not be admitted. 

4. The modification proposed to articles 130 (127) and 133 (130) 
which has for aim the extension from 3 to 6 months for the delivery 
of the existing war material in excess of the total amount authorized, 
does not appear to be justified by any material inability. 

This modification has been refused. 

In the event, however, that some inability of this nature should 
present itself, it would be the duty of the inter-allied Commission 
of Control to point it out and to propose the measures to take hi 
consequence. 

This material being, on the other hand, property of the State, 
it is not justified that its value be credited to the Austrian State in 
view of indemnities to be paid by that State (art. 133). 

The addition proposed, with this end in view, to article 133 (130) 
has, therefore, been refused. 

5. The modification proposed to article 132 (129) appears to have 
in view the safeguarding of the industrial interests, flourishing in 
Austria, in the manufacture of munitions and war material, and for 
the chase. As far as the arms and ammunition for hunting are con- 
cerned as well as explosives materials intended for use in mines 
and other technical works of a purely commercial order article 132, 
as it is written in the Terms of Peace communicated b}^ the Allied 
and Associated Powers, does not prohibit the manufacture. 

As to the manufacture of munitions for export, for which authori- 
zation is requested by the Austrian Delegation, it can not be allowed 
without necessitating a rigorous and permanent control, full of 
difficulties, and which the Allies have no intention of considering. 

The modifications requested to article 132 have not been admitted. 

The Allied and Associated Governments think they should specify, 
nevertheless, that the manufacture of fowling-pieces is permitted 
under the reservation that no gun manufactured in Austria to be 
used with shot may be of the same caliber as that of the guns used 
in any of the European armies. According^, the following note 
will be inserted between the first and second paragraph of Article 
132 of the Treaty of Peace presented to the Austrian Delegation. 
The manufacture of fowling-pieces is not prohibited under the 
reservation that no gun manufactured in Austria and utilizing shot 
will be of the same caliber as that of the guns used in any of the 
European armies. 

6. The modification requested to Article 13 If. (131) is likewise useless. 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 17 

NAVAL CLAUSES. 

The addition requested to Article 136 (133) (authority for main- 
taining three vessels for reconnoitering on the Danube) has been 
granted under the reservation that the selection of the ships will 
be effected by the Commission, the designation of which has been 
provided iri Article 154 (150) of the present Treaty. 

The addition proposed by the Austrian Delegation in their article 
138 has been twice granted, as far as it concerns paragraph I, on 
condition that the paragraph which will form article 142 be written 
as follows: Austria is held responsible for the delivery (arts. 136 and 
141 (138) ), the disarmament (art. 137 (134) ), the destruction (art. 
138 (135) ), as well as (art. 137) or for making use of (art. 136) the 
objects mentioned in the preceding articles, only in so far as the 
objects concerned Germans on her territory. 

The addition proposed to paragraph 2 can not be granted because, 
that material being the property of the State, it is not justified 
that its value be credited to the Austrian State in view of indemni- 
ties to be paid by that State. 

CLAUSES RELATING TO AVIATION. 

The observations presented by the Austrian Delegation have refer- 
ence to articles 144, 145, 147, 148, (140, 141, 143, 144) relative to: 

1. The suppression of military and naval Aeronautics (art. 144); 

2. The demobilization of the personnel (art. 145); 

3. Prohibition of manufacture, of importation and exportation 
(art. 147); 

4. The Delivery of material (art. 148). 

(a) Suppression of naval and military aeronautics (art. 144). — In 
determining this suppression the Allied and Associated Powers are 
animated only by the desire expressed in the introduction to the 
Treaty of Peace, to wit: The establishment of a durable peace, just 
and solid. This peace would not be assured if their former enemies 
retained at their disposal an instrument of aggression as powerful 
as an air ship built in the prospect of war. 

It is, therefore, necessary that the employment of aeronautics 
be prohibited them in the future. This has been already decided 
for Germany; there is no reason for making an exception in favor of 
Austria. It is incontestable that this prohibition leaves Austria dis- 
armed over against her neighbors, but her admission to the League of 
N ations, viewed as a brief delay, after the ratification of the Treaty of 
Peace, constitutes for her the best guarantee against all aggression. 
Under these conditions the armed forces of Austria will have only 
to assure order in the interior, the principal object that is assigned to 
them by the Treaty of Peace. For these police operations aviation 
is not necessary. 

(b) Demobilization of the personnel (art. 145). — The expert work- 
men in aeronautics, mechanicians, electricians, carpenters, sailors,, 
smiths have no difficulty in getting employment in other industries. 
These specialists are in g*eat demand, and the offers are such in 
France and in Engl n 1 that the army is powerless to retain them in 
its ranks in even the small proportions necessary for its most indis- 
pensable needs. Austria ought to have conjectured long since that 

S. Doc. 121,66-1 2 



18 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

her aeronautics industries, by her own avowal, solely military, could 
not continue to employ a personnel so numerous, and by a progres- 
sive demobilization she ought to have guarded against the incon- 
veniences of a sudden disbanding of that personnel. 

(c) Prohibition of manufacture, of importations, and of exportation 
(art. 147). — The maintenance of these prohibitions is enjoined under 
the same title as that of the terms imoosed in the preceding articles 
and of which thev are the indispensable complement. 

What end would be served, in fact, by issuing a decree for the 
suppression of military aeronautics in Austria, if by granting her 
the liberty of aeronautic manufacture and importation the possi- 
bility of restoring her destroyed material were left to her? 

As to her defense for exporting, she justifies herself by this fact, 
that all the material actually existent in Austria is war material. 
Having become useless in Austria, it could serve only for the arming 
of other states, for the commercial utilization of such material, an 
utilization to which it is not adapted, is not to be considered. 

Furthermore, it is an exaggeration to pretend that the prohibitions 
above are of a nature to oppose the restoration of economic life in 
Austria. 

In fact, the development of aviation in civil life is dependent 
upon improvements the realization of which is not, for a short while, 
to be considered. The decision of the Supreme Council limiting the 
duration of these prohibitions to six months, in spite of the danger 
consequent unon the ease with which everything aeronautic can be 
adapted to military ends, whatever may be the destination, danger 
that military experts without exception concur in recognizing, safe- 
guards that development in every degree possible. This decision 
constitutes, therefore, a minimum guarantee of security without 
compromising irremediably the future of aeronautic industry in 
Austria in the productions of peace. 

In short, one cannot forget that Austria was the ally of Germany. 
The liberties that she requests in production and in traffic, if they 
were granted her, would offer to Germany every facility for evading 
the especial terms that have been imposed upon her either by con- 
cealing her material under the Austrian flag or by issuing commands 
in Austria in order to renew her reserves for war. 

(d) Deliver}/ of material (art. 148). — Since all the material existent 
in Austria is war material, it is logical that this be delivered entire. 
The harm that will result to her industrial enterprises, though it 
may be great, is not fatal; one cannot, in every instance, be influ- 
enced by this consideration, these industries having been engaged 
to the present time only in work for the war. 

With respect to the proposal for the disarming of implements, 
that does not constitute a security worthy of being taken into con- 
sideration, since the re-arming can become operative under standards 
of rapidity that take away all value from the measure proposed. 

On the whole, the Allied and Associated Powers decide that there 
is reason to insist on the clauses in the Treaty of Peace relative to 
Austrian military and naval aeronautics without modification. 

Although the aerial forces that Austria can put in line are unpre- 
tentious, they constitute none the less, in the eventuality of an 
entente with Germany, a danger against which it is fitting to fortify 
oneself. 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTEIA. 19 

In every instance all the measures taken to disarm Germany would 
become completely illusory if her neighbor remained in a condition 
to lend to her military or industrial contiibution in order to aid her 
to reorganize under cover her battle fleet. In order that these meas- 
ures may be really effective it is altogether necessary to apply to the 
two countries the same treatment. 

fg> The considerations of an economic order that Austria holds impor- 
tant in order to escape this treatment are not valid, for the clauses 
that are forced upon her are not of a nature to do as grave injury to 
her industries as she pretends. 

GENEEAL CLAUSES. 

1. The modifications demanded to article 156 (152) tend to post- 
pone until July 1 the putting into force of the stipulations provided 
in the general clauses of the Treaty, the execution of which ought to 
be realized three months subsequent to the text published by the 
Allied and Associated Powers. This modification is not allowed. 

2. The modification proposed to Article 157 (153) subordinate 
to a decision of the Council of Nations the tenor of the obligations 
imposed upon Austria. 

This modification is not allowed. 

At the same time the dispositions of Paragraph 4 of Chapter 1 
(Military Clauses) of the armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, having been 
conceived in view of eventualities that the actual situation seems to 
have done away with, there is no need of maintaining these dis- 
positions. 

The text of Article 157 will therefore be modified and conse- 
quently the text revised as follows: The following dispositions of the 
Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, paragraphs 2, 3, and 6 of Chapter 1 of the 
annexed Protocol (Military Clauses) remain in force as far as they 
are not inconsistent with the above stipulations. 

PART VI.— PRISONERS OF WAR. 

The modifications proposed by the Austrian Delegation bear upon 
articles 160 (156)-169 (165) of the Peace conditions. The Allied 
and Associated Powers think there is no reason for their changing 
their previous decisions. 

The Terms of Peace realative to prisoners of war and to interned 
civilians are prompted by principles of human kindness which the 
Allied and Associated Powers have always held it an honor to respect, 
and these powers cannot admit as legitimate the mournful complaints 
that are expressed in the Austrian note of July 26th. The counter- 
proposals of August 6th, found in another part, contain nothing that 
induces them to modify their opinion on this subject. 

The Austrian Delegation demands that it be specified that article 
160 has not to do with the repatriation of citizens of the new Austrian 
Republic and that the provisions of that article cannot be applied to 
the citizens of the other States formed by the dismemberment of the 
former monarchy. 

It will be shown by a careful reading of the article, in its own text, 
that it has reference exclusively to the prisoners of war and interned 
•civilians of the Republic of Austria; consequently the evident fear 



20 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

on the part of the Austrian Delegation that Austria may have to 
bear, either responsibility or expenses for the repatriation of prisoners 
of war and of the interned citizens in other states that have been 
formed by the dissolution of the monarchy, is without foundation. 
The modification asked for is useless. 

The Allied and Associated Powers share the desire of the Austrian 
Delegation to have relieved the sufferings of the Austrian prisoners of 
war or interned civilians, who are actually retained in Siberia or in 
Central Asia; they will be happy to do all in their power to mitigate 
these sufferings and to allay at the same time the inevitable anxiety 
of the prisoners' families. But the} r are bound to have noticed that 
the unhappy situation is one for which they are not responsible and 
that, moreover, there does not exist in Russia a recognized govern- 
ment with which they may enter into relations to that end. 

They are ready, nevertheless, to do their utmost, by uniting their 
own efforts and the assistance that they can furnish to the Austrians' 
own countrymen, to bring about that repatriation just as soon as the 
opportunity presents itself. 

The other suggestions of the Austrian Delegation have not appeared 
deserving of reception. No reason exists for applying to the trans- 
port of Austrian prisoners rules different from those applied to the 
German prisoners; furthermore no reason exists for modifying the 
terms of peace concerning the prisoners who will necessarily be 
detained by the Allied and Associated Powers. They have never 
thought to retain the prisoners who have rendered themselves culpa- 
ble by acts of indiscipline or disobedience, save exception provided 
for in paragraph 2 of article 1G4; only criminals under common law 
for whom the quality of prisoners of war ought not to constitute a 
guarantee of impunity will be detained; the common law crime is 
also punishable if it has been committed in an attempt to escape as 
in any other circumstance. 

On the other hand, the Allied and Associated Governments do not 
see any reason obliging them again to receive upon their territories 
the Austrian prisoners who were formerly domiciled there and who 
were compelled to leave there as a consequence of war. 

The war for which the Allied and Associated Governments are not 
responsible is one whose consequences will long be felt. Would it be 
just to abolish the effects for the Austrian prisoners alone? As to 
requiring a captor State to give a certificate to prisoners suffering 
from infirmities consequent upon labors in captivity, this is a propo- 
sition of which the realization would be often very difficult and 
undemonstrated utility. 

The Austrian Delegation demands, in short, reciprocity in the 
clauses relative to search for the missing and in the restitution of the 
objects belonging to Austrian citizens, prisoners or interned. As for- 
merly to the German Delegation, the Allied and Associated Govern- 
ments reply to the Austrian Delegation that the restitution of personal 
property to these citizens is a legal right which it intends to fully 
respect; similarly they have always felt it incumbent upon them to 
furnish all the information they possess upon the missing. There is 
no need of inserting special dispositions to impose respect for laws 
which they always spontaneously recognized and sanctioned. 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 21 

PART VII.— PENALTIES. 

No concession can be granted to the Austrian Rermblic concerning 
penalties. The Allied and Associated Powers are disposed to admit 
that new States, issuing from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, 
are comnosed of populations having "belonged to the different 
nationalities of the former Monarchy." They deem, however, that 
nothing justifies the conclusion from this fact that the present 
Austrian State can be assimilated to said States, as to the responsi- 
bilities proceeding from the violation of the law of nations brought 
to the charge of the Austro-Hungarian armies. These "different 
nationalities" in revolt have manifested a desire for independence 
by conclusive indications, such as the organizing of legions of vol- 
unteers who hare actually participated in military operations on the 
side of the Allied and Associated forces. 

The high reprobation that these nationalities have witnessed con- 
cerning the actions and war methods of the Monarchy, in giving 
their adhesion and their cooperation to the claims of the Entente, 
and tlieir recognition as cobelligerents in the present war, suffice to 
justif}^ a difference in treatment between the Austrian Republic and 
the new States. 

From this point of view the Austrian Republic can not be con- 
sidered as the severing constitutional knot of the dislocation of the 
Austrian aggregation. 

The objection taken of the pretended inapplicability of the law 
of nations to the operations of war between the armies of the former 
monarchy and the insurgents of the different nationalities of the 
Empire, does not be^r a serious examination. The recognition of 
the insurgents as belligere ts implies a condition ruled by inter- 
national law which is found justly realized by the play of circum- 
stances which have led to the formation of new States. 

The Allied and Associated Powers do not desire to treat here the 
acts committed by a member of the Austro-Hungarian forces against 
persons who at the moment served effectively in their forces, and 
they are in accord with the laws and customs of war as given in the 
Convention upon laws of war on land (No. 4 of the Convention 
signed at The Hague in 1907), and that the rules given in this Con- 
vention do not apply to these cases. 

It is only in cases where the laws and customs of war apply that 
the Allied and Associated Powers desire to enter upon actions against 
individuals of the forces of the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy; 
and its intended prosecutions are limited to offenses of this nature. 

The individuals who will be brought to trial will be brought to 
judgment under conditions which will guarantee a just judgment. 

Article 174 (170) specially provides that in all cases the accused 
will be authorized to name his own advocate. The situation then 
is that any individual who proves that he is accused of an offense, 
which does not constitute a violation of the law of war, because it is 
not an offense to which the laws of war apply, will necessarily be 
subject to acquittal. 

In wording article 173 (169) to 176 (172) the Allied and Asso- 
ciated Powers have "willed to assure justly but firmly that to those 
guilty of acts contrary to the laws and customs of war the hour of 
•chastisement should come. The intent is to recognize the liberty 



22 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

of each of them in bringing before its military tribunals the direct 
authors of acts of this kind committed against its citizens. 

They do not exclude from this prerogative either the new States 
nor in any measure whatever the States to which new citizens are 
attached. The territorial mutations can not create among the 
victims a quality which would throw out a perspective of immunity 
for the guilty. 

The pretension that the laws of the Austrian Republic are opposed 
to a surrender of Austrian citizens to foreign tribunals is an argu- 
ment which the Allied and Associated Powers can not admit. In 
international law it is the duty of the Powers who are parties to a 
treaty to put in force laws necessary for the application of the treaty 

PART VIII.— REPARATIONS. 

GENERAL REMARKS. 

The Allied and Associated Governments have studied with care* 
the remarks presented by the Austrian Delegation concerning the 
responsibility of the Austrian Republic in the matter of all the Tosses 
and injuries which they have undergone in the course of the war. 

They can not, however, grant that the Austrian Republic was dis- 
charged from all responsibility as a result of the revolution brought 
about in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in their withdrawal from 
the war and of the creation of new states by the dismemberment of 
that monarchy. 

They admit that the change which has taken place in the form of 
the Austrian Government will allow them more easily to renew 
friendly relations with Austria. 

However, after thorough examination of the question they believe 
they can not depart from the principle according to the terms of 
which the Austrian Republic should be regarded as responsible for 
the policy and the acts of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy during 
the course of the war. 

It is not less true that while they believe themselves bound to 
maintain this principle, the Allied and Associated Governments have 
never lost sight of the loss of territory undergone by the new Austria 
and the financial and economic difficulties it will inevitably be 
obliged to face. They have in this connection to call to notice that 
the present financial condition of the Austrian Republic is not due 
in any way to the acts of the Allied and Associated Governments, or 
to their peace proposals; it is the result of the financial and military 
policy pursued by the Austro-Hungarian Government during a long- 
period of years. 

At the same time and in order to act with a view to the preservation 
of the peace of Europe, the Allied and Associated Governments have a 
perfectly clear idea as to the point that it is important not to charge 
the new Austria with a burden heavier than it is in condition to bear. 
It is this thought which they have constantly followed in framing 
the articles of Reparations which appear in the terms of peace. 
This is the reason why article 179 (175) does not fix the amount of 
the sums to be paid by Austria and gives for the purpose of determin- 
ing upon this very great power to the Reparations Commission. 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 23 

In paragraph 12b of Annex II it is expressly stated that the 
Reparations Commission shall receive instructions to take account 
of: 

(1) the actual economic and financial position of Austrian territory 

as delimited by the present treaty; 

(2) the diminution of its resources and of its capacity to pay 

resulting from the clauses of the present treaty. 
In order to bring out more closely the fact that the Allied and 
Associated Governments appreciate the difficulties of the present 
financial situation of Austria, they have decided to erase at the 
beginning of article 181 (177) and Annex J, paragraph 12b, the words 
"in order to allow the Allied and Associated Powers to undertake 
forthwith the restoration of their economic and industrial life while 
awaiting the definite determination of the amount of their claims." 

II. DETAILED EXAMINATION. 

The Allied and Associated Governments refer the Austrian Dele- 
gation for that which concerns Annex III to that part of the present 
note which treats of article 300 (294) of the peace terms. 

The Allied and Associated Governments deem that the legitimate 
interests of the Republic of Austria will be efficaciously safeguarded 
by the dispositions contained in said article; they can not then admit 
the modifications proposed by the Austrian Delegation to Annex In. 

The Allied and Associated Governments have examined with par- 
ticular care the observations of the Austrian Delegation which treat 
of Annex IV relative to cessions of cattle. They are not ignorant of 
the sufferings and misery in Vienna caused by the milk famine, and 
they have already given practical proof of their sympathy by sending 
them considerable quantities of condensed milk. But at the same 
time, they can not lose sight of the fact that a grave and alarming 
milk famine is equally shown in allied countries, and that it is directly 
due in large measure to the great number of cattle carried out of the 
Allied countries during the war by the Austro-Hungarian Government 
in near-by territory. 

The problems put up to the Allied and Associated Governments 
consist then of alleviating the misery caused by the milk famine in 
the Allied countries, in such measure as to aggravate the least the 
condition of the population of Vienna. For, following the advice of 
their experts, certain sections distant from the centers of the Aus- 
trian Republic are not in a position because of the configuration of 
the country and the difficulties of transportation, to contribute to the 
supply of milk to Vienna. But they can cede a quantity of cattle to 
Italy, Serbia, and Roumania as partial restitution for the much 
larger quan titles which they carried off during the course of the war. 
Such a measure will not sensibly increase the milk famine from which 
Vienna suffers. 

Because of these facts, and in view of the demands which must be 
considered as privileged of the districts in which a milk famine has 
been provoked b}^ depredations committed during the war, the 
Allied and Associated Governments deem that there is no reason for 
modifying or suppressing Annex IV. 

As to Annex V, the Austrian Delegation proposes as to option of 
wood, iron, and magnesite provided in the peace tern s, that the 



21 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

prices fixed be those of the international market and not those of the 
Austrian interior market. 

The observations formulated in this regard by the Austrian Dele- 
gation appear to rest upon an inexact interpretation of said Annex. 

The intention of the Allied and Associated Governments is not to 
raise the price of the home market to the plane of the international 
market; they only desire that option be conferred of acquiring these 
articles at the home market prices and that all benefits resulting from 
this privilege, as it said at the beginning of the Annex, be considered 
as partial reparation for the damages caused to the Allied and Asso- 
ciated Governments during the war. Furthermore, this option will 
be exercisible only through the Commission of Reparations who, as 
it has been said before, will receive instructions in view of taking into 
account the financial and economic situation of Austria and who will 
consequently be able to take measures necessary that Austria be not 
deprived of the possibility of buying out of the country and of import- 
ing such products as are essential to its economic existence. 

The observations of the Austrian Delegation concerning articles 
191 (187) and 192 (188) seem equally to rest in a certain measure 
upon an erroneous interpretation. The articles expressly refer to 
article 184 (188) of which they constitute special application. Con- 
sequently, they concern, as does this last, such objects as it "will be 
possible to identify either upon the territories belonging to Austria 
or to its allies, or upon the territories remaining in possession of 
Austria or its allies until the complete execution of the treaty." 

The date June 1, 1914, which figures in article 192 has been there 
inserted to take account of the circumstances that certain objects 
have be°n, shortly before the war, carried away from territory cited 
in execution of the present treaty, probably for the purpose of sub- 
tracting them from the damages that they might have sustained 
during hostilities. This article equally refers to article 184 and is 
then applicable only in cases when it will be possible to identify the 
objects which it concerns uoon the territories of Austria or its allies. 

The Allied and Associated Governments deem that the questions 
raised by article 193 (189) are of those which could on occasions be 
the subject of supplementary conventions between the interested 
governments. But as these same questions will be regulated by the 
Commission of Reparations which is obligated to give to the Austrian 
Government the equitable formality of a hearing, it does not seem 
to the Allied and Associated Governments necessary to insert special 
dispositions upon this in the treaty. 1 

The Allied and Associated Governments propose to add at the 
end of article 194 (190) in view of taking into account in the largest 
measure possible, of the objections formulated by the Austrian Dele- 
gation, the words "in so far as the objects referred to have not in 
fact been executed in their entirety and in so far as the documents 
and objects are situated in the territory of Austria or her allies." 

As regards article 195 (191) the Allied and Associated Governments 
deem it inopportune either to support the reference to Poland and to 
Czecho-Slovakia or to increase the number of the Committee of 

i In the ease of objects which have been seized by the Italian military authorities alter the armistice 
of Nov. 3, 191S, and when it should appear that these objects do not come within the categories of Section II 
of Part. VIII of theDraft of the Treaty, the Italian Government declares that it will offer no obstacle to their 
restriction. 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 25 

Jurists. It will be developed upon the Commission of Reparations 
to employ such experts as it esteems necessary, and the Allied and 
Associated Governments think it is preferable in the interest of all, 
to leave the largest freedom of choice to the Commission of Repara- 
tions. They think the words "right of the Italian provinces" have 
a sense sufficiently clear to prevent of giving birth to the interpreta- 
tion feared by the Austrian Delegation. 

PART IX.— FINANCIAL CLAUSES. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have studied with the greatest 
care the observations presented by the Austrian Delegation on the 
subject of the Financial Clauses. They fully appreciate the impor- 
tance which these clauses bear to the Austrian Republic, and it is 
with this spirit of appreciation that they have examined them. 

In ordef to render a clear understanding of the general significance 
of the financial clauses, it is perhaps wise to recall certain essential 
principles which governed the Allied and Associated Powers in the 
drafting of the peace terms; the Allied and Associated Powers are 
obliged to consider the Austrian Republic the successor of the Austrian 
Monarchy. The States to which an Austrian territory is transferred 
or the States newly born of the dismemberment of Austria count 
among the Allies, and they have had sacrifices and suffering imposed 
upon them by the war. 

As a consequence, the Allied and Associated Powers can not allow 
the possibility of imposing upon these States the burden of the war 
debt of the old Austrian Government, a debt contracted to sustain a 
war of unjust aggression, and used to the detriment of the Allies. 

Moreover, in preparing the financial clauses, the Allied and Asso- 
ciated Powers have not once been oblivious to the extremely com- 
plicated financial situation of the Austrian Republic. Their policy 
does not tend to bring bankruptcy and disorder to the finances of the 
Austrian Republic. Tneir sincere desire is, on the contrary, that the 
Republic may recover, as peacefully as possible, its financial and 
economic equilibrium, and that it may have entire freedom to follow 
the policy (new and declared requisite by its representatives) as the 
Allied and Associated Powers are pleased to recognize it. The goal 
sought by the Powers is to lighten the financial burden of the Austrian 
Republic in a measure compatible with the essential principles men- 
tioned above. It is with this intention that special provisions have 
been inserted concerning the war debt of the States to which an 
Austrian territory is transferred or which are born of the dismember- 
ment of Austria — such provisions as the clauses relative to the rights 
of subjects of the Austrian Republic in the said States. 

Tne Allied and Associated Powers have, as a result, examined with 
particular care the figures relative to the financial situation of the 
Austrian Republic — which situation they found such as to make 
possible the present treaty. In their vastness these figures revealed 
a situation which was already familiar to these Powers, and of which 
they took a great deal of account in the drawing up of the financial 
clauses of the treaty. 

The counter proposition made by the Austrian Delegation have 
been equally made the object of the most attentive study, and each 
clause has been examined anew in the light of the Austrian observa- 



26 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

tions. In all events, however, it has been found that the arguments 
presented in the Austrian Note of August 6, 1919, had been con- 
sidered and discussed at length at the time when the treaty was being 
drafted, and that the changes, though actually proposed, had been 
at that time judged inacceptable. 

Tne present reply will not permit an individual examination of each 
of the observations of the Austrian Delegation; it will confine itself 
to an indication of the points on which it has seemed necessary to be 
precise, either to correct a mistake or misunderstanding cf the 
Austrian Delegation, or to prove the weakness of certain arguments. 

Article 197 (193). — The Austrian Delegation seems to have mis- 
understood the article, in proposing to add after the first paragraph 
of the actual text a paragraph concerning only the Austrian States; 
the situation of Austrian subjects is regulated by the part following 
the Peace Terms, that is by the economic clauses. 

The provision inserted in the second paragraph of the actual text 
(exportation of gold) constitutes a guarantee for the Allied and 
Associated Powers, and, as such, it must be maintained. It will 
always be allowable for these Powers to authorize exportations of 
gold in such circumstances and in such measure as will seem neces- 
sary to the economic life of Austria. 

Article 201 (197). — Tnis article does not confer any new right to 
the Allied and Associated Powers, but it stipulates that conditions 
created by the preceding articles do not affect Austrian assets and 
property which are within the jurisdiction of the Powers. In con- 
sequence, the article does not seem to give any cause for the objec- 
tions raised by the Austrian Delegation. 

_ Article 203 (199)—Pre-War Debt.— (a) The Reparations Commis- 
sion has formal instructions to give to the representatives of the 
Austrian Republic, on such basis as it may consider equitable, the 
power to regulate questions relative to the distribution of responsi- 
bility for the prewar debt. The Allied and Associated Powers see, 
therefore, no reason for modifying the provisions of this article. 

(b) Moreover, it does not seem necessary to regulate in this article 
or in its annex, the questions brought up by the distribution of the 
second debt, since, from a technical standpoint, this distribution is 
less complicated than that of the unsecured bonded debt. 

(c) The power given to the Reparations Commission to modify, if 
it thinks fit, the terms of the conversion of the currency in which the 
bonds are expressed, seemed to the Allied and Associated Powers a 
necessary guarantee to the holders of bonds in order to assure them 
an equitable determination of the share of the debt which they 
withhold. 

Section 2. — (a) Concerning the distribution of responsibility for 
the unsecured pre-war debt, the Austrian Delegation raised an objec- 
tion on the subject of the basis chosen for the evaluation of the 
revenues of the respective territories. It is the intention of the 
Allied and Associated Powers that, for the distribution of this debt, 
as close as possible an account must be kept of the actual revenues 
of the respective territories, and they consider that their intention 
is expressed with sufficient precision by the text of Article 203 just as 
it is actually worded. Obviously it follows from this article that 
the Reparations Commission will have the power to choose the pre- 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTEIA. 27 

war revenues which will be the most qualified to serve as a basis of 
an equitable distribution of the responsibility of the debt, in keeping 
account of the changes in actual circumstances. 

(b) The Allied and Associated Powers see no reason for the abandon- 
ment of the principle that the Austrian Republic will alone be re- 
sponsible for the pre-war pledges of the former Austrian Govern- 
ment, which are not represented by bonds; but they are ready to 
admit that the category of debts to which the Austrian Delegation 
especially calls then* attention, such as the annuities due for the 
purchasing of railroads, can be considered as justly composing part 
of the debts represented by the bonds. 

In consequence they wish to add after the third paragraph of Sec- 
tion 1 of Article 203 the following words: 

For the purposes of the application of the present article there will he considered 
as secured debt payments pledged by the former Austrian Government, relative to 
the purchase of railroad lines or of property of like nature, the distribution of liability 
for such payments will be determined by the Reparations Commission in the same 
manner as that of the secured bonded debts. 

Article 205 (201). War Debts. — -For the reasons explained above, 
the Allied and Associated Powers can not renounce the general prin- 
ciples which inspired the wording of this article. However, they 
have scrutinized with the greatest attention the remarks presented 
by the Austrian Delegation and, in studying anew and in detail the 
provisions of the article in question, they have sought for changes 
which could be made in the text to give satisfaction to the demands 
of the Austrian Delegation without forfeiting the original principles. 
After this new study, they have decided to modify the text of Article 
205 and to make it at the same time more clear by introducing in it 
the following conditions: 

(1) after the second paragraph a new paragraph is added: "the 
act of a State in stamping and replacing securities by certificates 
under the provisions of this article, shall not imply that the State 
thereby assumes or recognizes any obligation in respect of it, unless 
the State in question desires that the stamping and replacement 
should have this implication"; 

(2) at the end of the third paragraph of the original text, they sub- 
stitute for the words: "held within the boundaries of their respective 
territories by themselves or by their nationals" the words "of which 
they themselves or their subjects are the owners"; 

(3) in the fourth paragraph, instead of the words "the burden of 
the part of the war debt — by the subjects or the Governments of — ," 
it reads ' ' the burden of the part of the war debt of the former Austrian 
Government which, prior to the signing of this treaty, belonged to 
the nationals or the government of — ." 

Article 206 (202). — After a new examination of this article, it has 
been decided that no change shall be made in the actual text. How- 
ever, it may be wise to assure the Austrian Delegation that the Allied 
and Associated Powers keenly desire to avoid bankruptcy or disorder 
in the finances of the Austrian Republic. These Powers do not 
doubt that in applying the provisions of article 206, the Reparations 
Commission will do everything in its power to avoid the failure of 
Austrian credit, and that it will strive to surmount the infinite diffi- 
culties inherent in the situation and which cannot fail to arise, what- 
ever may be the method used to solve the different questions raised 



28 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

in this article. Without doubt, an institution or rather some new 
institutions should be immediately created and substituted for the 
Bank of Austria-Hungary to fill up the gap left by the liquidation of 
this institution, the inevitable consequence of the fall of the old 
Empire of Austria-Hungary. No provision of the treaty prevents 
the Austrian Government from taking measures to this effect without 
delay. 

Article 215 (211). — Although the Allied and Associated Powers can- 
not amend this article in the sense proposed by the Austrian Delega- 
tion, they wish the Delegation to understand that it is their serious 
desire to see the financial problems brought about by the dismember- 
ment of the former Austrian Empire solved as soon as possible by an 
understanding among the successor states. 

They are convinced that the Reparations Commission, in applying 
the conditions provided by this article/will not cease to strive for this 
goal. 

PART X.— ECONOMIC CLAUSES. 

I. REGULATIONS, TAXES, AND CUSTOMS. 

The Allied and Associated Powers, after examining the note of 
July 16th of the Austrian Delegation, have unanimously declared 
that in whatever concerns the eventual arrangements of Austria with 
the countries born of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or grantees of 
territories made a part of the Empire, they do not see how they can 
go beyond the concessions to which they consented in their note of 
July 8th. 

They fail to see how they can admit the validity of the argument 
invoked by the Austrian Delegation, according to which Austria was 
to be prevented from concluding a special arrangement with Czecho- 
slovakia, in the matter of customs duties, by the fact that she is 
obliged to give up for three years any partial discrimination toward 
a favored nation. Austria shall have absolute freedom, except for 
unimportant exceptions, to establish her own general tariff and she 
will be in a position to grant, if she so desires, tariff reductions in 
favor of the commerce of Czecho-Slovakia, contrary to corresponding 
concessions, without being forced to extend the benefit of the reduc- 
tions to any other country. A like provision is granted to Hungary. 

There exists in the treaty no stipulation whatever preventing any 
one of the Allied and Associated Powers, including Jugo-S.tavia and 
Roumania, from henceforth treating Austria as a favored nation. 
But, with the exception of the special case of coal, which shall be 
later stated precisely, the Allied and Associated Powers are not dis- 
posed to exceed the provisions of the Treaty of Peace already com- 
municated to the Austrian Delegation, by the terms of which Austria, 
unless the League of Nations decides otherwise, will be released after 
three years from the obligations which are imposed upon her by 
Articles 217 to 220 (213 to 216) with regard to any of the Allied or 
Associated Powers which would not grant her a correlative treatment. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have examined with special 
care the difficulties relative to the supply of coal necessary for 
Austria, which was the object of the notes of July 16th and 27th. 
There is no reason for supposing that the Czecho-Slovak Govern- 
ment will take any measure to restrict or regulate the Austrian pur- 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 29 

chases of coal in Czecho-Slovakia. Nevertheless the Allied and 
Associated Powers in order to calm the apprehensions of the Austrian 
Government, are disposed to consent to the insertion in the treaty of 
an article, 224, relative to the supply of coal by Czecho-Slovakia and 
Poland to Austria in exchange for a reciprocal supply by Austria of 
raw materials necessary to these countries. 

(1) The Czecho-Slovak State and Poland undertake that for a 
period of fifteen years from the coming into force of the present 
treaty they will not impose on the exportation to Austria of the 
products of coal mines in their territories any export duties or other 
charges or restrictions on exportations different from or more onerous 
than those imposed on such exportations to any other country. 

(2) Special agreements shall be made between Poland and the 
Czecho-Slovak State and Austria as to the supply of coal and of raw 
materials, reciprocally. 

(3) Pending the conclusion of such agreements, but in no case 
during more than three years from the coming into force of the 
present treaty, the Czecho-Slovak State and Poland undertake that 
no export duty or other restrictions of any kind shall be imposed on 
the export to Austria of coal or lignite up to a reasonable quantity 
to be fixed, failing agreement between the States concerned, by the 
Reparations Commission. In fixing this quantity, the Reparations 
Commission shall take into account all the circumstances, including 
the quantities both of coal and of lignite supplied before the war to 
present Austrian territory from Upper Silesia and from the terri- 
tories of the former Austrian Empire transferred to the Czecho- 
slovak State and Poland in accordance with the present treaty, and 
the quantities now available for export from those countries. Austria 
shall in return furnish to the Czecho-Slovak State and Poland sup- 
plies, of the raw materials referred to in paragraph (2) in accordance 
with the decision of the Reparations Commission. 

(4) The Czecho-Slovak State and Poland further undertake 
during the same period to take all such steps as may be necessary to 
insure that any such products shall be available for sale to purchasers 
in Austria on terms as favorable as are applicable to like products 
sold under similar conditions to purchasers in the Czecho-Slovak 
State or Poland, respectively, or in any other country. 

(5) In case of disagreement in the execution or the interpretation 
of any of the above provisions, the Reparations Commission shall 
decide. 

II. UNFAIR COMPETITION. 

Article 226 (221). — The addition to this clause of the words pro- 
posed by the Austrian Delegation is inadmissible. In fact it is not 
desirable to adopt a rule which can be considered as admitting the 
possibility of an exception to the general principle that words, pri- 
vate marks, names, inscriptions, or signatures of any kind bearing 
false indications of the origin of the goods must not be used. More- 
over, there is nothing in the clause preventing the inscription on 
merchandise of words in the language of the country where the 
merchandise must be sold, provided that the words thus used are 
not such as to express a false indication of the origin of the goods. 



30 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

Article 227 (222). — Concerning prohibitions made in Article 227, 
the Allied and Associated Powers can not accept the modification 
proposed. This Article is only applicable under the condition of 
reciprocity, and it must not be impossible for the Austrian Govern- 
ment to make arrangements to apply judicial decisions relative to 
regional appellations, in express conformity with the laws on the 
subject, in the countries which are ready to accord to Austria a 
reciprocal treatment. Such decisions can be fully assimilated in the 
ordinances and regulations laid down in the Austrian note. 

III. TREATMENT OF NATIONALS OF THE ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED 

POWERS. 

Article 230 (225). — The remarks made by the Austrian Delegation 
on the subject of nationality (Remarks, p. 19-20), at least the 
remarks concerning Article 230, come from a wrong interpretation. 
It must be noted that this Article is in harmony with the provisions 
of a certain number of naturalization treaties and that it tends 
chiefly to do away with the international difficulties which may 
result from a conflict of national legislations in the matter of 
nationality. 

Article 231 (226). — The Austrian Delegation, in the memorandum 
annexed to its note, No. 707, of July 12th, demands reciprocity in 
the right reserved for the Allied and Associated Powers (by Article 
23), namely, the right of appointing consuls in the cities and ports 
of Austria. The Allied and Associated Powers are not disposed to 
grant this reciprocity to Austria; however, it is worthy of note that 
nothing in this Article opposes either the putting into force again, in 
the terms of Article 231, the prewar consular agreements between 
certain of the Allied and Associated Powers and Austria, or at the 
conclusion of the new grants between Austria and the Powers con- 
cerning the admission into their territory of agents of the Austrian 
consulates. 

IV. TREATIES. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have already expressed their 
opinion as to the intention expressed by the Austrian Delegation to 
consider Austria as an entirely new State which, having no bonds 
of joint liability with the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 
would not be bound by stipulated obligations such as the dual 
monarchy has consented to; and so they think it useless to renew 
this discussion concerning the special question of treaties. 

Article 234 (229) to 247 (242) relative to the enforcing of the 
treaties, imposing on Austria special obligations, in terms applicable 
to the situation: these articles must be kept, and it is timely to 
note that the Austrian Delegation does not dispute them as being 
unduly harsh but opposes in them only the consideration of principle 
heretofore mentioned. 

Always, even if they cannot admit the agreement on which the 
Austrian Delegation bases its reply, the Allied and Associated Powers 
recognize the justice of two observations relative to articles 234 and 
241: 

Article 234. — It is because of a gross error that at the end of Article 
234 the mention of the Convention of June 12, 1902, relative to the 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 31 

guardianship of minors has disappeared. It is proper to reestablish 
it in this form : 

"23. Convention of June 12, 1902, regarding the guardianship of 
minors." 

Article '246' (245). — The limitations demanded by the Austrian 
Delegation can be assumed by modifying the wording as follows: 

From the coming into force of the present treaty, Austria undertakes, so far as she 
is concerned, to give the Allied and Associated Powers and their nationals the benefit 
ipso facto of the rights and advantages of any kind which she or the former Austro- 
Hungarian Monarchy ha? granted by treaties, conventions, or arrangements to non- 
belligerent States or their nationals since July 28, 1914, until the coming into force of 
the present treaty, so long as those treaties, conventions, or arrangements are in force 
for Austria. 

General Observations on Sections III-VIII. 

■ The Allied and Associated Powers have carefully examined the 
note of August 9th of the Austrian Delegation, concerning Sections 
III-VIII of the Economic Clauses as well as the detailed notes relat- 
ing to them. 

The note of the Austrian Delegation and most of the detailed 
observations make in the beginning objection to the continuation of 
the liquidation of the Austrian rights and interests' after peace has 
been concluded. 

This objection has been met largely by the concessions accorded in 
the reply of July 8th in answer to a preceding note. 

In the terms of this repty, the interests of Austrian nationals in 
the territories formerly a part of the Empire of Austria-Hungary 
will not be, because of special considerations concerning their inter- 
ests in these territories, subjected to the liquidation provided by 
Article 249 (244) of the Treaty, but the Allied and Associated Powers 
could not extend this concession to the interests of Austrian nationals 
abroad. (By the term "nationals" is meant, as it appears in cer- 
tain explicit provisions of the Treaty, both physical and moral beings 
in every case where the contrary is not explicitly specified.) 

The Allied and Associated Powers have no intention whatever of 
applying the procedure of liquidation provided by the Treaty for 
Austrian rights and interests which will come to their territories in 
the future. The conditions of Article 249 (b) will be applied only 
to such rights as shall exist at the moment of the coming into force 
of the Treaty of Peace. For obvious reasons, it has moreover 
seemed expedient to improve the wording of Article 249 (244). 

The detailed observations of the Austrian Delegation concerning 
other points are treated in the following remarks : 

V. DEBTS (SECTION III). 

Article 248 (243). — The Allied and Associated Powers cannot 
admit the proposition of according a delay of six years for the veri- 
fication and payment of debts owed by Austrian nationals to Allied 
creditors. 

Concerning the remarks of the Austrian Delegation relative to 
the interest on securities issued by the former State of Austria- 
Hungary, it is noticeable that the article is applied uniquely to accrued 
interest or to exigible capital sums before and during the war. As 
a consequence, no question is raised in this article on the matter of 



32 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

knowing whether these interests or capital can become exigible after 
the coming into force of the Peace Treaty. There is no motive for 
excluding the interests and the capital mentioned in paragraphs 
3 and 4 of the system of the Clearing Office; but, in order to 
state precisely concerning Austro-Hungarian debts, Austria cannot 
account, by the application of this system, for the indivisible sums 
of the debt for which she is indebted in conformity with the other 
provisions of the Treaty, it is agreed to add the following words to 
the end of these paragraphs: 

In the cape of interest or capital sums payable in respect of securities issued or taken 
over by the former Austro-Hungarian Government, the amount to be credited and 
paid by Austria will be the interest or capital in respect only of the debt for which 
Austria is liable in accordance with the Financial Clauses of the present Treaty and 
principle laid down by the Reparations Commission. 

Article 248a, Annex, paragraph 3. — The prohibition of communica- 
tions between debtors and creditors, discussed in this paragraph, con- 
cerns only the relations for the regulation of debts payable through 
the medium of the Clearing House. Furthermore, communication of 
this kind can always take place through the medium of this Office, 
and no modifications to this effect has seemed necessary. 

Article 21 l .8b.-r J Yh.Q Allied and Associated Powers agree to abolish 
the last phrase of this paragraph which stipulates that debts accrued 
by inhabitants of invaded territories occupied by the enemy before 
the armistice, will not be protected by the States of which they are a 
part: the corresponding phrase at the end of Article 14 of the Annex 
is also abolished. 

Article 248d. — The Austrian Delegation declares that it can not 
understand the fourth paragraph of Article 248d. The Allied and 
Associated Powers have decided to change the wording of this para- 
granh to make it more explicit. 

The text of the paragraph will be as follows: 

Concerning Poland and the Czecho-Slovak State, newly created powers, the cur- 
rency in which and the rate of exchange at which debts shall be paid or credited 
shall be determined by the Reparations Commission provided for in Part VIII, unless 
they shall have been previously settled by agreement between the States interested. 

Article 24-Se. — It is not possible to give at the same time to the 
Allied and Associated Powers and to Austria the right of choice in 
connection with the Clearing House, for the result would be that 
one of the Powers would adopt it and the other would not adopt it. 

The Treaty provides the possibility of applying special rules, 
concerning currency and the rate of exchange whether the system 
is or is not adopted, and the adoption of this system by only one 
part of the Allied or Associated States, will impose no excessive 
restrictions upon Austria. Under these conditions, the proposition 
of the Austrian Delegation of leaving to the Separations Commis- 
sion the duty of deciding when the system shall be applied, can not 
be allowed. 

The delay of six months, provided by Article 248e for the exercise 
of the right of option has, in the text of the Economic Clauses sub- 
mitted to the Austrian Delegation July 19th, been reduced to a 
delay of one month after the ratification of the Treaty of Peace by 
the interested Powers. 

Tnanks to this modification, it will be no longer necessary to 
make special provisions to guarantee the payments of many debts 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 3S ; 

during the short period of uncertainty as to the adoption of the 
system. 

There is no reason for according delays in payment, once it is- 
known that the system will not be applied between two given, 
countries. 

Article 248, Annex, paragraph 16. — The motive for the distinction 
between the Clearing House for the creditor and the office of the 
debtor is that the procedure before the courts for the purpose of 
obtaining judgment on a contested debt will be, as a general rule.,, 
carried on in the country of the debtor. 

However, when there is a question of this nature at issue, it is 
not allowable to permit the Office of the Debtor to carry the dis- 
pute before the courts of the country of the creditor. 

Article 248, Annex, paragraph 20. — The phrase to which allusion 
is made declares that the tribunal can award the costs and expenses 
of the trial and it does not seem that there can be any misunder- 
standing upon this pojnt. This disposition is necessary to avoid 
delays and expenses which would be caused by ill-founded appeals. 

Article 24-8, Annex, paragraph 22. — There are not sufficient reasons 
for modifying the rights of creditors as regards interest in cases 
where they are authorized to assess interest by virtue of contract, 
of law, or of customs. The disposition which provides for payment- 
of interest in other cases is reasonable because the debtor has had 
the use of the sum during the war for a period so long that it could 
not be looked into by the parties. 

VI. PROPERTY RIGHTS AND INTERESTS. 

The Austrian Delegation complains that the obligation to pay art 
indemnity for the damage caused to property in consequence of 
measures taken by the Austro-Hungarian Government is imposed 
upon Austria alone; but if, as it is said, this property of the citizens 
of the Allied and Associated Powers had been protected by the former 
Austro-Hungarian Government and if these citizens had not been 
interfered with in these affairs, the indemnities would not have been 
raised to a considerable amount. 

The Allied and Associated Powers will have the right of liquidation 
of Austrian properties in their territories, according to circumstances,, 
but they have no intention of liquidating personal articles or sou- 
venirs of little value. 

Article 249, (244) fund g. — 'The Allied and Associated Powers can- 
not accept the substitution of the words "before the signature of 
peace" to the words ''before the signature of the armistice" at the end 1 
of paragraph (g). 

Article 2491c — One does not see the motive upon which objection 
is based to this clause; its necessity particularly results from informa- 
tion gathered by the Allied and Associated Powers upon the method^ 
it is proposed to apply in Austria for raising taxes upon capital levied : 
upon property of the allied citizens with a view to accord with the 
Treaty with Germany, the text of this article has been modified as 
follows; "The amount of all taxes or imports on capital levied or to 
be levied by Austria on property rights and interests of the nationals- 
of the Allied and Associated Powers from November 3, 1918, unti 
three months from the coming into force of the present Treaty or„ 

S. Doc. ]2I,6<i-I 3 



34 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

in the case of property, rights, or interests which have been subjected 
to exceptional measures of war, until restitution in accordance with 
the present Treaty, shall be restored to the owners. 

Article 2A9, Annex, paragraph 1. — The Allied and Associated 
Powers are not disposed to recognize in any fashion the measures 
taken by the Austro-Hungarian Government in invaded and occu- 
pied territories, and this paragraph can not be modified. 

Article 2A9, Annex, paragraph A. — In regard to the complete 
solidarity whichhas existed during the war between the Powers at 
war with the Allied and Associated States, and particularly in regard 
to the negotiations engaged for the division of allied property seized 
in occupied territories, the principle of this solidarity of responsi- 
bility must be maintained; but the Allied and Associated Powers are 
ready not to burden the property of Austrian nationals with the 
obligation of satisfying the unpaid debts of the nationals of the 
Powers formerly allies of Austria-Hungary. It will be noticed that 
the paragraph has consequently already been modified. 

Article 219, Annex, paragraph 5. — The purport of this paragraph 
seems to have been ill understood. It is applicable only in the case 
•of a corporation incorporated in Austria and controlled by a corpora- 
tion incorporated in allied or associated states. The paragraph will 
have the effect of reestablishing law of trade-mark in third countries 
to the" profit of the person who virtually was proprietor before the 
war, and there can be no reasonable objection to such disposition. 

Article 2A9, Annex, paragraph, 8. — The absence of reciprocity in this 
disposition comes in part from the fact that an indemnity can not be 
demanded by Austrian citizens from the Allied and Associated Powers, 
accordingly detailed specifications will not be required. For this 
reason the Allied and Associated Powers are not disposed to engage 
,to furnish detailed specifications, but they are nevertheless ready to 
favorably examine all requests presented after the putting in force of 
the Treaty with a view of obtaining sufficient data, as to the sums 
realized in the liquidation of Austrian property. 

Articl° 2A9, Annex, paragraph 10. — -As it has been explained above, 
the Allied and Associated Powers can not abandon the laws of liqui- 
dation contained in Article 249h in any larger measure than has 
been indicated, and they can not modify paragraph 10. The object 
of this paragraph is, as established in the Austrian note, to allow that 
liquidations may be effected without inconvenience and useless ex- 
pense. 

Article 2A9, Annex, paragraph 12. — The principle established in this 
paragraph that cash assets must be reimbursed is absolutely just for 
all parties and the Allied and Associated Powers see no reason for 
recognizing the war loans as sums belonging to the enemy. The 
paragraph applies to the Allied and Associated Powers as well as to 
Austria and they can not consent to its modification. 

Article 2A9, Annex, piragraph 1A. — Similarly, as concerning the 
right of option for the Clearing House, it is not possible to give at the 
same time to the Allied Powers and to Austria the right of option in 
that which affects the principal formula of the rate of interest and 
exchange. 

Additional Note. — In their reply to a preceding Austrian note 
the Allied and Associated Powers have consented that the property, 
rights, and interests of Austrian Nationals situated in the territories 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 35 

formerly a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire would not be sub- 
mitted to liquidation in virtue of Article 249 of the Treaty. 

Section VIII. 

Article 266 {260).— The Allied and Associated Powers have modi- 
fied this article so as to stipulate that the property, rights, and inter- 
ests with which it is concerned will be restored free of all charges or 
tax upon capital established or augmented since November 1, 1918, 
and that it will not be subject to any tax imposed on other property 
or enterprises belonging to the same person, from the moment that 
this property will have been withdrawn from Austria or when these 
enterprises will have ceased to be exploited there. 

To put the text in harmony with the modifications in the 2d para- 
graph of article 271 (266) the text of the 2d paragraph of the former 
article 260, will be modified as follows: 

The disposition of articles 248d and 272 of the present Treaty regarding currency 
in which payment must be made will be applicable in cases which they respectively 
concern in the reimbursement of the assets of which it is questioned in paragraph ona 
of the present article. 

Concerning the last paragraph of the article the words stipulating that payments 
regularly made for the purpose of the Trust will be taken into account seem to have 
been lost sight of by the Austrian Delegation. 

Article 267 {261). — To justify the observations of the Austrian 
Government, from which, being given the measures taken before the 
putting into force the Peace Treaty, the dispositions of article 267, 
which interdict the seizure of liquidation of property, rights, and 
interests of Austrian nationals in transferred territories, can in fact 
be rendered illusory, the Allied and Associated Powers have added 
to that article a stipulation providing that all these properties, 
rights, and interests shall be restored to their owners, freed from all 
these measures or of any measures of transfer taken between No- 
vember 3, 1918, and the coming into force of the Treaty. To this 
effect they have decided to add at the end of article 267 the following 
words: Such property, rights, and interests shall be restored to their 
owners freed from any measure of this kind, or from any other 
measure of transfer, compulsory administration, or sequestration, 
taken since November 3, 1918, until the coming into force of the 
present Treaty, in the condition in which they were before the appli- 
cation of the measure in question. 

Article 268 (262). — In order to settle definitely the objections that 
the Austrian Delegation raised to this article, the Allied and Associ- 
ated Powers are prepared to substitute for it and for article 263 the 
following text: "All contracts for the sale of goods for delivery by 
sea concluded before January 1, 1917, between nationals of the 
former Austrian Empire on the one part and the administrations of 
the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Austria, or Bosnia-Her- 
zegovina, or Austrian nationals of the other part shall be annulled, 
except in respect of any debt or other pecuniary obligation arising 
out of any act done or money paid thereunder. All other contracts 
between such parties which were made before November 1, 1918, 
and were in force at that date shall be maintained." 

Article 269 {264). — No difficulty can result from the suspension of 
delay of prescription and of the limitation of the rights of prosecution 
provided by this article; on the contrary, its purpose is to foresee all 



36 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

the hindrances that would, otherwise,, not fail to arise by reason 
of the difficulty or impossibility of communications between parties. 

Article 270 (265). — With the view of deciding definitely the 
objection raised by the Austrian Delegation that the obligations to 
which Austria is asked, in this article, to conform are not defined, 
the Allied and Associated Powers are ready to substitute, for the 
former text, the following: "Austria undertakes not to impede in 
any way the transfer of property, rights, or interests belonging to a 
company incorporated in accordance with the laws of the former 
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, in which Allied or Associated citizens 
are interested, to a company incorporated in accordance with the 
laws of any other power, to facilitate all measures necessary for 
giving effect to such transfer, and to render any assistance which 
may be required for effecting the restoration to Allied or Associated 
nationals, or to companies in which they are interested, of their 
property, rights, or interests whether in Austria or in transferred 
territory. 

Article 271 (266). — The Allied and Associated Powers agree to 
substitute for article 266 the following provisions: 

Section III, except Article 248 (d), shall not apply to debts contracted between 
Austrian citizens and citizens of the former Austrian Empire. 

Subject to the special provisions laid down in Article 248 (d) for the case of the new 
States, these debts shall be paid in the legal currency at the time of payment of the 
State of which the national of the former Austrian Empire has become a national, 
and the rate of exchange applicable shall be the average rate quoted on the Geneva 
Exchange during the two months preceding November 1, 1918. 

Article, 275 (270). — The observations of the Austrian Delegation 
are founded on the hypothesis that the remittance of insurance 
funds, social or state, should be effected under another form than 
that in which they are actually existent; such is not the case. It 
may be observed, moreover, that the article itself provides that the 
conditions, under which the remittance is made, will be determined 
by special agreement to be concluded between the Austrian Govern- 
ment and the Governments whose interests are concerned. 

In order to remove all ambiguity that could exist on this point the 
Allied and Associated Powers declare that the proportion of the 
reserves to be remitted in execution of this article will be the exact 
proportion of the existing stock or funds invested at the date of the 
armistice. It will have been noticed elsewhere that to this article 
there has been added a paragraph the provisions of which assure a 
just and reasonable regulation as to the conditions of transfer. 

VII. CONTRACTS, PRESCRIPTIONS, JUDGMENTS (SECTION v). 

Article 251 (246) b. — The question of "General interest" is one of 
those matters that should be determined by the Allied and Associated 
Governments interested. A modification of this article with the 
aim of providing for an appeal to a mixed Court of Arbitration in 
matters of this sort can not be admitted. 

The article provides, it may be observed, that a compensation 
could be granted by the mixed Court of Arbitration to a contracting 
party who had suffered considerable injury. 

Article (251) d. — The import of the first part of this article is that 
the rule established by Article 251 and its annex do not apply to the 
contracts between citizens of an Allied and Associated Power of one 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 37 

part and the inhabitants of a transferred territory that acquired by 
the terms of the Treaty the nationality of an Allied or Associated 
Power of the other part. The contracts between Austrians of one 
part and the inhabitants of a transferred territory of the other part 
are the subjects of Article 268. 

Article 252 (247) b and c. — The Allied and Associated Powers are 
not disposed to aoply the principle of reciprocity to these articles. 

The Treaty points out that, in certain cases, the Allied and Associ- 
ated Tribunals are competent to regulate the differences, but that 
power is not given to Austrian Courts of Justice and reciprocity can 
not be granted in what effects the claims for indemnity introduced 
by the mixed Court of Arbitration. 

VIII. MIXED ARBITRAL TRIBUNAL (SECTION Vl). 

The proposition for extending the jurisdiction of the mixed Arbitral 
Tribunal calls for the following response: The role of the Tribunal is 
not only to decide upon the recent claims resulting from the treaty, 
but also to form a new jurisdiction to which may be referred certain 
disnutes relative to private rights already existing. 

The Tribunal of the Allied and Associated Powers already has 
jurisdiction over these rights and certain of said Powers meet insur- 
mountable difficulties in withdrawing their disputes from other 
Tribunals to their own Tribunals. 

According to their system of jurisprudence, and in actual circum- 
stances, they see no sufficient reason for withdrawing from their 
citizens the access to their own Tribunals which their jurisdiction 
opens to them. 

No new jurisdiction is given to these Tribunals and the Austrian 
litigants are not injured by these Tribunals retaining a jurisdiction 
which they already actually have. 

Concerning the obligations formulated in paragraphs 7, 8, and 9 of 
the Annex, the Allied and Associated Powers consent that paragraph 
7 be modified to provide that Austria shall give to the Tribunal all 
facilities and necessary information the Allied and Associated Powers 
can require to proceed further in its inquest. 

The text of paragraphs 8 and 9 have already been modified as 
follows : 

Paragraph 8 — The language in which the proceedings shall be 
conducted, unless by contrary agreement, will be English, French, 
Italian, or Japanese according as may be decided by the Allied and 
Associated Powers interested. 

Paragraph 9 — The place and date of the hearing of each Tribunal 
shall be determined by the President of the Tribunal. 

Contracts of Insurance. — The viewpoint of the Austrian Govern- 
ment, according to which the provisions relating to contracts of 
insurance contained in Articles 251 (246) to 253 (250) and in the 
Annex to Section V do not apply to contracts between Austrians of 
one part and the inhabitants of a territory transferred to another 
part is correct; as it is stated above, these contracts are the object of 
article 258 (232). 

The remarks of the Austrian Delegation represent the terms of the 
Treaty, as far as the Insurance Contracts are concerned, as harsh and 
contrary to the principle of reciprocity; but, in fact, the only para- 



38 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

graph of the Annex which treats with contracts of insurance and is 
not completely reciprocal is paragraph 12. The objections con- 
cerning this paragraph have been taken into consideration and its 
prohibition has been accepted. 

The French text of the paragraph must not be changed. It has 
seemed obvious that the value of this text in question is the value of 
reimbursement. 

Nothing justifies a special provision granting long delays of pay- 
ment for sums owed by Austrian Insurance Companies to Insurance 
Companies of the Allied and Associated Countries. 

Under these conditions the Allied and Associated Powers are not 
disposed to make any other changes in the provisions of the Treaty 
relative to Insurance Contracts. 

IX. INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY (SECTION VIl). 

Concerning the general remarks in the preamble of the Austrian 
memorandum on Industrial Property, the Allied and Associated 
Powers cannot agree to any essential change in the articles on the 
Industrial Property of inhabitants of territories separated from 
Austria. Nevertheless, to ensure recognition and protection of the 
rights of Industrial Property to Austrians in the territories separated 
from Austria a new provision has been added to article 274 (269). 

Article 258 {253), paragraphs 2 and 8 and Article 262 (251).— 
Paragraph 2: The Allied and Associated Powers have no intention of 
using without compensation the rights of Industrial Property, literary 
or artistic, belonging to Austrian Nationals, after the coming into 
force of the present Treaty. 

The question raised on the subject of these articles has already been 
solved by the insertion of a new condition after paragraph 5 of 
article 258. 

Article 258, 55 and 8. — The fifth paragraph of Article 258, which 
provided that the Allied and Associated Powers will have the right 
to impose limitations, conditions, or restrictions on the rights of 
Industrial Property belonging to Austrians, has by no means for its 
object the confiscation of these rights. It tends, on the other hand, 
to reserve to the Allied and Associated Powers the advantage of 
restricting Industrial Property, literary or artistic, whenever they 
shall consider the restriction necessary for the needs of the national 
defense or the public interest. This advantage, as Austria is assured 
by its interior legislation, is a general and permanent right which is 
applied, as the case may be, to the industrial property, literary or 
artistic, which may be obtained before or after the coming into force 
of the Treaty of Peace. 

On the other hand, it tends to allow the usage of industrial property, 
literary or artistic, by the same right as the other Austrian benefits, 
as a pledge for the fulfilling of the Austrian obligations and for the 
reparation of the losses she has caused. The Allied and Associated 
Powers have no intention of using for this purpose the industrial 
property, literary or artistic, which can be obtained after the coming 
into force of the present Treaty. But, Industrial Property, literary 
or artistic, acquired before or during the war, can be subjected by the 
Allied and Associated Powers to limitations, conditions, and restric- 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 39 

tions provided to assume of an equitable treatment by Austria of the 
rights of Industrial Property, literary or artistic, possessed on Aus- 
trian territory by their citizens, or to guarantee the complete fulfill- 
ment of all the obligations contracted by Austria in virtue of the 
present Treaty. 

To make clear the different treatment in this regard that the Allied 
and Associated Powers count on preserving for the property acquired 
before the coming into force of the Treaty and for that which may 
be acquired in the future, paragraph 5e, of Article 258 has already 
been perfected by a new provision. 

The power given by paragraph 8 of the article declaring null and 
void and of no effect any transfer in whole or in part of rights of 
individual, literary, or other property effected after July 28, 1914, 
must be maintained; otherwise an Austrian owner of an Industrial 
Property could be nominally deprived of his legal title in a way to 
deprive him of the benefits of this article. 

Article 259 (254), paragraph 2, last sentence. — The remarks of the 
Austrian Delegation have been satisfied by the amendment to Article 
258, which is the clause providing the payment of dues. 

PART XII.— PORTS, WATERWAYS, AND RAILWAYS. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have examined attentively the 
detailed observations presented by the Austrian Delegation touching: 
upon the clauses of Part XII of the Conditions of Peace. Certain 
of these observations and criticisms refer to a text of the Peace Con- 
ditions prior to the last text transmitted to the Austrian Delegation, 
Others have seemed to come simply from errors in the interpretation 
of the meaning of the stipulation and of the intentions of the Allied 
and Associated Powers. The majority represent fewer objections of 
detail on the practical application of the clauses than claims of 
principle, of general and political nature, corrected and changed 
in turn according to the diversity of the technical problems at the 
time of the examination of a great number of articles. Then too r 
the Allied and Associated Powers do not believe they need to follow 
in their reply the outline, article by article, of the Austrian observa- 
tions: they are content to group here, on the principal questions 
raised, the reasons of fact and of rights which justify the maintenance 
of the whole of the clauses, or, in certain cases, the modifications 
which it has been considered just to accord. 

The chief, and without doubt, the most constant of the protesta- 
tions of the Austrian Delegation against the text of the stipulations 
of the part "Ports, Waterways and Railways" of the Peace Terms 
aim at the application of numerous articles on the general regime 
of the ways of transportation, freedom of transit, transportation by 
railways, by waterways and the telegraph services, in which obliga- 
tions, binding on one party only, were imposed on Austria for a delay 
of five years after the coming into effect of the Treaty of Peace. 
The Austrian Delegation, on one hand, deems that the text of the 
article in which this general delay of five years is provided, is worded 
too unjustly since it would allow the Allied and Associated Powers 
to prolong it as long as they wish. On the other hand, while seeming 
to recognize, for the Powers who have been at war with the former 
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the right to enforce these powers, the 



40 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

Austrian Delegation refuses to admit that the new States, allied or 
associated successors of the said Austro-Hungarian Monarchy can 
equally claim this right. It claims, in consequence, as to its state- 
ments with regard to this last category, the privilege of immediate 
reciprocity and it argues particularly against the special guarantees, 
of even an undetermined duration, granted to the Czecho-Slovak Re- 
public on certain railways and on certain telegraphic lines of Austria. 

The Allied and Associated Powers desire to give satisfaction, as 
much as possible, to the demands of the Austrian Delegation. They 
have decided that the general delay of non-reciprocity shall be 
reduced to three years, and Austria does not need to fear that this 
delay will be arbitrarily prolonged; she will find all guarantees in this 
regard in the decision maturely reasoned by the Council of the 
League of Nations. Concerning the new States born of this dis- 
memberment of the former monarchy, by the addition of a new 
paragraph to Article 330 (322), Austria receives complete satisfac- 
tion, and the benefit of reciprocity is assured her from the coming 
into force of the Treaty of Peace. 

Another series of observations which in the note of the Austrian 
Delegation has also reappeared in several forms and apropos of divers 
articles, concerns the acceptance in advance by Austria of future 
agreements and technical agreements on the freedom of transit, the 
international regime of ports, waterways, and railways, the transpor- 
tation by railway, the adopting of a continuous brake, the statute of 
the Danube; agreements which should be concluded in the future 
without the participation and without the collaboration of Austria, 
according to Articles 299 (293), 304 (298), 313 (305), 317 (309), and 
331 (323) of the Peace Terms. 

It is worthy of note in this matter that concerning the elaboration 
of the new agreement on railway transportation destined to replace 
the agreement of the Berne convention, article 313 formally provides 
the possible collaboration of Austria in the new agreements, and con- 
cerning the future technical agreement relative to the continuous 
brake, it has never been a question of obliging Austria to enter the 
agreement and to adopt the brake system chosen by the Allied and 
Associated Powers, but merely to supply the railway carriages because 
of decrees permitting their introduction in the trains of the Allied and 
Associated Powers, provided with the continuous brake, and, recip- 
rocally, to introduce the railway carriages of the Powers into the 
Austrian trains; the Allied and Associated Powers are, moreover, dis- 
posed to listen to the Austrian representatives on the technical agree- 
ment on the type of continuous brake. In its new form Article 304 
relative to the definitive regime of the Danube stipulates that the 
representatives of Austria shall be present at the Conference called to 
establish the statute. Finally, the general agreements on freedom of 
transit, the international regime of ports, waterways, and railways 
will not at all be dictated by the Allied and Associated Powers, but 
they will bind these Powers and must, to bind Austria, receive the 
approval of the League of Nations. If none of the possible guarantees 
of equity have been neglected, in retaliation, it has seemed inad- 
missible, as the Allied and Associated Powers have already replied 
to Germany, that an enemy state can, for political motives and senti- 
ments, hinder, by its opposition on principle, the conclusion of agree- 
ments useful for the good of all. 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 41 

The Austrian Delegation, in fact, does not fear to affirm that the 
Austrian State, disarmed for transport enterprises, does not take the 
responsibility of enforcing certain clauses pertaining, for example, to 
the equality of treatment and of taxes in interior navigation "in 
s.o much as the application can be ensured by public establishment 
or establishments on the manipulation of which the state or a public 
body has the right to exercise its influence," when in fact the Austrian 
State possesses, by the organization of subventions, or simply by the 
ownership of the majority of the shares, the entire control of great 
enterprises of interior navigation; and in case of suit, it belongs to it 
to take in title of its responsibility before the other contracting 
Powers and in full exercise of its sovereign rights, every internal 
legislative measure or of administration, proper to assure, in pre- 
scribed delays, the strict execution of the terms of the Treaty. 

The most concrete remarks of the Austrian Delegation upon the 
technical stipulations of construction and of cessions of railways, and 
above all the regime of the Danube, have all the more permitted the 
Allied and Associated Powers, to precise their own point of view, 
no doubt inexactly understood, of rectifying the texts, loyally taking 
into account new objections. Article 321, providing for construc- 
tion of new Transalpine line of the Col de Reschen and of the Predil 
Pass, has already been modified in the last text of the Peace Terms 
transmitted to the Austrian Delegation; the eventual financial obli- 
gation of Austria had been precised and subordinated to the exist- 
ence of correspondent receipt, the new line added to this article, 
aggravates in no degree these obligations. 

In the same way article 319 (311) had received the adjunct of a 
new paragraph relative to frontier depots, which appeared to respond 
to certain desiderata of the Austrian "note. The last paragraph of 
article 318 (310), concerning the lines of former Russian Poland, 
converted to the normal guage, has been the object of a revision of 
wording and rendered more conformable to the juridical situation 
where these lines were placed during the course of the war. As to 
the remainder of the article its wording has been modified and can 
leave no doubt upon the intentions of the Allied and Associated 
Powers. In common with the Austrian Delegation, the Allied and 
Associated Powers deem in effect that the distribution of the rolling 
material of the State Railroads of the former Austrian Monarchy 
between Austria and the Allied and Associated states issuing from the 
dismemberment of Austria-Hungary or cessionaires of territories of 
the former Austro-Hungarian monarchy ought to be subjected to a 
veritable liquidation and placed under the direction of a Commission 
of experts in which all the interested States will be represented; such 
has always been their view of the subject; they have never pretended 
to oblige Austria to repair in its own shops all the rolling material 
transferred to other States; they have only wished to assure necessary 
disposition for the immediate reparation of the material so far as the 
new States will not have been able to constitute in their own territory 
autonomous workshops. 

The articles 288 (283) and 289 (284) have equally been misin- 
terpreted by the Austrian Delegation. The Allied and Associated 
Powers did not in any way propose to bind Austria as to transportation 
of and toward navigable rivers, which would not be done after tran- 



42 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

shipment of transports to and from any port whatever, so taking 
note of the remark that the Austrian traffic upon the Danube is con- 
fined nearly exclusively to the exchange of merchandise between the 
States situated on this river, they agree to suppress in articles 288 
and 289 the mention of Austrian ports. The combination of new 
texts of articles 288 and 289 with article 316 (318) suffices in effect to 
establish each time that in case the transport is going to or from any 
maritime port whatever, this transport will submit to rules 288 and 
289, whether it is or not with transhipment to an Austrian or foreign 
port, and this is the only case viseed by the Allied and Associated 
Powers. 

The observations of the Austrian note as to the particular regime 
of the various international rivers have been submitted by the 
Allied and Associated Powers to the same attentive examination. 
For the Elbe, the Oder, and likewise the Rhine, the Austrian Delega- 
tion demands that Austria be represented upon the River Commis- 
sion; alleging, on one hand, the economic interests of Austria upon 
the Elbe and the Oder, and, on the other hand, its situation as riparian 
state of Lake Constance for the Rhine. The Allied and Associated 
Powers have not felt obliged to give attention to the Austrian sugges- 
tions. The quality of riparian state of Lake Constance can not in 
any way carry right to a representative in the Rhine commission, 
the Rhine not being navigable above Basle. Similarly, concerning the 
Elbe and the Oder, the economic interests of Austria are not suffi- 
cient reason for its admission to the Commission. 

Without doubt, the States other than the riparian States par- 
ticipate, but in nowise because of their economic reasons and much 
sooner, also that the Allied and Associated Powers have already set 
forth in the Reply to the observations to the Geneva Delegation, to 
the end that the disinterested Powers introduce by their presence in 
the Commission, between the divergent interests of the riparian 
states, an element of weight and equilibrium and representing the 
principle of free navigation of these rivers. 

For the Danube to the contrary, certain of the remarks specified 
by the Austrian Delegation have been made use of. Article 300 (294) 
concerning the cession of vessels and of material has been profoundly 
revised with a view of determining more precisely the powers of the 
Arbiter charged with the distribution and of safeguarding more 
efficaciously the ownership of the vessels. The Allied and Associated 
Powers take this occasion to declare that the object of this article, 
as well as of the corresponding articles of the Treaty with Germany, 
is to assure the best utilization of river ships in Europe, for the 
benefit of the riparian States and in nowise consider the compensa- 
tion for the losses sustained during the war, which has been considered 
in other clauses. The war has in effect considerably diminished the 
disposable facilities of river navigation. The territorial readjust- 
ment, particularly those which regard the cession of river ports, can 
exact the redistribution of the remaining vessels, to the end that 
they may be immediately utilized in the general interest. The 
Arbitrator or Arbitrators who will be designated by the United 
States have been charged with the redistribution of the river vessels, 
as necessitated by territorial changes. 

In the same way that a cession of rolling stock must accompany 
a cession of railways in the transfer of a territory, similarly, in case 



TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 43 

of cession of river ports, the Arbitrator must determine the material 
belonging thereto which ought to be ceded. Without being bound 
by this consideration he must take account of the needs of the 
interested States, as well as of the river traffic of the five years 
preceding the war. Similarly, as article 300, article 303 (297) 
providing for the meeting of the International Commission of the 
Upper Danube has been modified and completed, it has seemed 
necessary conformably to the demands of the Austrian Delation 
to define the attributes and the mode of functioning of this provi- 
sional International Commission, which will convene with the least 
possible delay after the coming into force of the Treaty. 

In response to the observations touching the canal from the Danube 
to the Oder, it is understood that as soon as this canal has been 
contracted by the Czecho-Slovak State the regime provided for the 
Bhine-Danube canal will be applied; Austria will receive as well 
all guarantees of free navigation of this waterway which appears to 
it necessary for its economic outlet to the Baltic and North Seas. 
Finally, a new article, 310, assures the maintenance of irrigation 
works, of canalization, of utilization of hydraulic force, etc., situated 
upon the territory of many States. 

The Allied and Associated Powers have asked themselves if it 
would be feasible, as proposed by the Austrian Delegation, to extend 
the international regime to all the navigable streams of the affluents 
of the Danube, of the Drane, of the Save, and of the Theiss. It has 
not for the moment appeared desirable to push further internationali- 
zation. This pertains to the definition of article 291 (281) that is to 
say; to equally internationalize the navigable part of a fluvial system 
that would not naturally serve of access to the sea of more than one 
State, but they recall that the General Convention, provided by 
Article 299 (293) will be able to internationalize all parts of a river 
system which may be comprised in a new general definition by the 
said Convention. In the meantime while the internationalization of 
the Elb has been extended from the Vltave to Prague upon the 
express request of the Czecho-Slovak Republic, they assent for the 
present by an amendment to Article 291 to give by particular agree- 
ments concluded by the riparian states the free extension of the 
application of the international regime. 

The Allied and Associated Powers deem putting in practice of the 
claims of Part XII of the Peace Terms, so precissd and completed, 
will prove in application at the same time their viability and their 
efficacy, for the resumption as early as possible of the free communi- 
cations in Europe, which the Allied and Associated Powers are as 
desirous as the Austrian Delegation of assuring and guaranteeing. 

PART XIII.— LABOR. 

The Austrian Government, in ratifying the part of the Treaty 
relating to Labor, expresses the following regret: 

In the opinion of the Austrian Government, it would be desirable not only to 
incorporate in the Peace Treaty the rules of procedure for the development and 
organization of legislation for the protection of the worker, but above all to enact 
in this same instrument the substance of rights and obligations in the matter of social 
provision. 

And, after having given the motives in the development of its own 
legislation, it adds that " the spirit in which it is inspired would 



44 TREATY OF PEACE WITH AUSTRIA. 

inevitably require that the Treaty for the World Peace enforce in 
the domain of International Law— all the 'provisions proposed and 
accepted at the International Syndicalist Congress at Berne in 1919." 

Some analogous observations have been presented by the German 
Delegation and they have been answered. 

It is not possible to solve the many and complex questions of the 
Peace Treaty without indefinitely retarding the signing of this Treaty. 
In the second place, it is desirable to discuss them with the concourse 
of Neutral Nations in which the legislation requires the same progress. 
Finally, the permanent international organization of Labor, created 
by the Peace Conference, was in reality formed to arrive at a solution 
of the mass of labor problems, and the field of action which is assigned 
to it includes them all. 

It would appear, therefore, that the Austrian observations do not 
involve any modification of the Treat} 7 of Peace, as it does not 
advance any modification whatever to the text of Part XIII. It is 
in the main satisfied with it; as appears that the Austrian Govern- 
ment, presuming that it will be represented in the Labor Organiza- 
tion, declares its readiness to accept the Peace terms concerning 
Labor. 

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